


Unholy Union

by NeverwinterThistle



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - John kills Iosef and Viggo goes to the High Table for justice, M/M, Marriage of Convenience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2020-10-17 23:10:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 74,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20629085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/pseuds/NeverwinterThistle
Summary: Another explosion sounds in the distance.“Really,” Santino says. “I understand making a statement, but after a certain point it becomes vulgar. Oh, you have a tank? How nice for you. No one is impressed.”Do a stolen car and a dead dog justify the murder of Viggo Tarasov’s only heir? The High Table believes not, and that means it’s open season on John Wick. Every enemy he’s ever made is invited to take their grievances to his door - and he’s made a lot of enemies. The only way out of this death sentence is to marry someone whose influence can protect him.It’s lucky Santino is available to make John an offer he very much can’t refuse.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> For the person who made this happen (you know who you are).

Tuesday is a good day; John doesn’t kill anyone.

The call comes through to the Continental, reception transferring it to his bedroom where he’s sitting at the window with the rain and a cooling coffee. He picks up; expects Marcus, or maybe Winston gently reminding him that check out is at ten o’clock sharp.

“Mister Wick,” says a man. Russian accent, heavy and harsh. Faintly familiar, but it’s not Viggo. John doesn’t bother to respond. “It has…come to my attention that I possess something of yours. An accident with the inventory, you understand. A mistake.”

John watches the rain drip down the glass. “You have my car.”

“Completely undamaged, aside from a little wear on the tyres, which I will happily pay to replace. And, as I said, a mistake. My nephew…my _ex-nephew_, shall we say, he left it among my own vehicles. I was not aware. Now that I am, I wish to return this stolen property to its rightful owner.”

“Abram Tarasov,” John says slowly. Now there’s a voice he hasn’t heard in a while. Viggo was always more hands-on with the family hellhound, but he’s done plenty of work for Abram. Once upon a time. Knows how the man ticks; knows it shouldn’t be this simple. “So that’s it? You’re just giving it back?”

“I would like to avoid a midnight visit from the Boogeyman,” Abram says. “I’m an old man; I have enough trouble sleeping as it is. Your quarrel is with Viggo-”

“I have nothing against Viggo. Just his son, and that’s settled now. We’re at peace.”

“Not while I still have this car in my warehouse. Perhaps we can come to an arrangement; I will leave it at a certain location on the docks- you know the one. It will be there at midday, should you wish to collect it. I hope you won’t mind if I do not attend to hand it over, but given the circumstances…”

_Take the fucking car and go,_ John translates. He leans back into the chair. It seems so easy. Maybe it really is. Maybe they want him gone as much as he wants to be gone. He’ll be back home by midafternoon. Finished. Retired once again.

“I appreciate that, Abram,” he says. “Have a nice life.”

“And you, John Wick. Enjoy your retirement.”

He’s not actually stupid enough to assume it’ll be that simple. Down at reception, he checks out early; Charon gives him a knowing smile with the bill, and asks if he’ll be needing a taxi to his destination. Winston is nowhere to be seen. Fair enough. Neither he nor John have ever been any good at farewells.

“A taxi would be perfect,” John says. “I’m guessing you already know the destination.”

“The Continental always tries to anticipate the needs of its guests,” Charon tells him. He calls the taxi. Bids John farewell. There’s something to his tone that suggests he doesn’t think it’s permanent, but that’s not John’s problem. He steps out of the lobby into the cold outside air, the gentle rain, and doesn’t feel a single moment of regret. The door swings closed on a chapter of his life he’s already trying to tear out. The taxi is waiting.

Down at the docks, the wind drags at John’s jacket, his hair, the rain making his shoulders damp. He’s hours early; that’s intentional. Careless, aimless, like a man with nothing on his mind but a walk by the waterfront, he checks for an ambush. Rooftops, warehouses, boats. However careful Abram might have been, John is more careful still. He expects betrayal. He doesn’t find it. The dockworkers move, as regular as the tides, and John winds his way around their predictability, killing time as the rain starts to ease into dampness and grey.

Hands in his pockets, he stands at the edge of the water, watching the ships move. A van pulls up nearby, doors slamming, easy conversation. John turns slightly at the rattle of metal and several high-pitched whimpers.

“Careful with the sheepdog, it’s chipped,” says one of the men. “Probably a runaway.”

“What about the other one? Pitbull thing?”

“No chip. The vet thinks putting it down might be kindest. You sell that kind of dog around here, you know where it’s ending up.”

John turns away as they carry the cages into the building behind him. Dogs die; life goes on. He’s leaving as soon as his car arrives.

Still, he catches himself glancing over his shoulder as one of the dogs whines again. Black, adolescent, silky ears and scared expression. Dead by the end of the day. Not his problem. John drops his hands into his pockets and walks on.

The car arrives at midday, as promised. They bring it inside a truck, tied down and swaddled like a newborn; it takes them a good fifteen minutes to remove all the polystyrene padding and gently reverse the car down to ground level. John would be a lot more amused at the obvious argument that goes down when it’s time for someone to get behind the wheel, even if just for a minute. Would be, if watching didn’t raise his hackles.

The tyres are conspicuously new. Abram’s delivery crew leave with the haste of men who believe themselves to be hunted.

And John has his car back.

He means to leave immediately. Wants it badly; it’s been a long few days, home is so close, and the clothes he’s wearing feel like they belong on another man’s skin. He wants to burn them. To bury the gun. To forget any of this ever happened and go back to the stillness, the silence, the shadow of grief. He’s owed that much, surely. It can’t be too much to ask. He wants to go home.

John takes a right instead of the left that leads out of the docks area. He drives slowly, mindful of the workers, pulling up outside the beaten down vet clinic on the waterfront. When he taps on the door, there’s no response. It’s locked. John glances over his shoulder, but the area is empty, silent but for the water and the muted whimpers of the dogs.

He smashes the glass and lets himself in. 

A few minutes later, he leaves with the doomed black dog on a leash. They go home.


	2. Armouries and Art Galleries

The night is a quiet one. John leaves the lights off. It’s easier; he doesn’t have to focus on all the spaces that aren’t his. The clothes, the books, the food in the kitchen. The soy milk he doesn’t like, but will drink anyway. It makes no sense to throw it away. The rest, he’ll get to. In a day or so. Next week. Sometime. When the stitches in his side heal enough to stop biting him.

He has a clear plastic bag on the bed, filled with yet more things that aren’t his; these, he’ll have less trouble getting rid of. The black clothes, the holster, the tie, the gun. It’s a uniform for a job he no longer has, and he’ll bury it like all the other things he doesn’t have, and miss it less over time. He’s done it before. He can do it again.

The dog trots around the house with far more confidence than John feels. It explores, it eats, it chews at the tennis ball he gives it. Every now and then it comes to him and leans on his shins until he pats its head. There doesn’t seem to be anything else that it wants from him.

John doesn’t give it a name.

He ties the bag closed. There’s a disappointing lack of finality in the gesture; he’s keenly aware of how easy it would be to reopen, which means he’ll have to bury it tonight. He’d hoped to wait until morning. He’s not sure he trusts himself. On the nightstand he has a little orange bottle of pills. _Take two for full function_; he settles for one. It works fast, but in the absence of pain he finds he has nothing to fill the silence.

It’s almost a relief when something smashes down the hallway. John sets the bag back down.

“Bad dog,” he says, and immediately feels like a monster. “It’s fine. What did you do?”

The dog comes running from the study, tail in the air, and John hesitates in the doorway. Wrong direction. It wasn’t the dog. And the back of the house is low on decorative objects which might fall and break unprompted, which leaves very little explanation for the sound. He may have imagined it. He’s not himself. The painkiller is strong, he’s on edge, and he hardly recognises the angles of his own home. Maybe the sound is in his head.

Unless it’s as simple as someone smashing the glass to get through the back door. Distantly, John hears it creak open. Remembers all the times Helen asked him to oil the hinges, the times he promised and then genuinely forgot.

He wonders how many other early warning systems he’s subconsciously set for himself. His hands are already tearing open the plastic bag. Gun, bullets, no need for the holster. He’s not aware of telling them to do anything.

There are five intruders, dressed in black, faces covered, each carrying a katana. John pauses half out of the bedroom doorway. They won’t have seen him yet. He has a clear shot.

There are five ninjas in his fucking house, and he hasn’t the faintest idea what they’re _doing_ here.

_I’m retired_, he thinks, and shoots two through the head before they spot him. The third bullet is lower, counting on the fact that they’ll have started moving by now; it takes one of them through the chest, blood spray on the walls and floor, the two survivors stepping over their dead. They’re traditionalists, not stupid. They drop their swords, pull out pistols, and that’s when the fight gets serious.

John sprints down the hallway. He counts on the darkness to cover him, counts on the fact that the intruders don’t know where the light switches are, or the layout of the rooms. A bullet lodges itself in the wall at shoulder height, exploding plaster across one side of his face. Another tears up the floorboards. John dives into the kitchen.

“You have the wrong house,” he shouts, as several bullets lodge into the wooden doorway. “I’m retired. I quit. I’m _out_.” He doesn’t know where the dog is; if it has any sense, it’ll be hiding under the bed until things quieten down. It’s too soon for him to dig another grave in the yard. The earth from the last is still soft enough that he could open it with his bare hands.

“John Wick,” one of them calls from the hallway. John breathes slowly. The voice is getting closer. He has a pretty good idea of where it might be located. “Welcome back. Welcome home.”

It’s enough. John fires at chest height through the wall, twice, wood and plaster spraying like blood, and hears a scream from the other side. He drops to one knee in the doorway, leaning out far enough to spot the last remaining ninja.

He’s spotted in return. Only one of them is fast enough to open fire.

Ears ringing faintly, John stands. He’s careful about stepping into the hallway; it seems strange that five ninjas would all come through the same entrance point, assuming they were coming in at all- which still makes _no fucking sense_. None are left alive to question; the one he shot through the wall is finished, still bleeding from a ruined throat, body faintly twitching. Lifeless. No one can tell him what’s going on.

And still he’s stuck on why they would all come through the same door. They’re not a police unit; not a military strike force busting into a house. Assassins have no reason to cluster, and every reason to spread themselves out in as many places as possible. The front door, the side doors, the windows, the roof. There are so many options (John’s tried them all under the guise of household chores and home improvement. He knows).

Unless there’s a reason they couldn’t. Unless the other entrances aren’t an option.

John hears voices outside the front door. Loud, irritated; the sound is muted, but there are definitely guests around, and they don’t sound happy. He moves back to the two dead ninjas. Drops his gun, takes both of theirs, checking them over. They’ll have spare ammunition as well, if he doesn’t have time to reach the basement and grab his own-

Glass smashes again, this time from the bedroom. John snarls under his breath and moves back into the relative safety of the kitchen. He sees a light switch on. Heavy boots, careless, kicking furniture aside; not ninjas this time.

If they’ve hurt his dog, there’ll be hell to pay. And John will happily deliver the devil’s bill.

He leaves one of the guns on the kitchen bench, moving to the knife block. It’s not full; he hasn’t gotten around to replacing the missing knives from the last time a bunch of uninvited strangers invaded his house, and that, more than anything, angers him. John pockets the paring knife. He tucks the chef’s knife into the waistband of his jeans.

Then he steps out into the hallway and faces the first of the intruders.

They made a mistake turning on the bedroom light; the hallway’s still dark, and they don’t know where the switches are. John is the only one accustomed to the shadows. His first bullet takes the man through the head, jerking like a sharp pull on a steering wheel, falling back into the people behind him. There’s a shout; John opens fire, trusting to the assumption that they’ll have clustered in the doorway, that his target is large enough to allow for a decent spread. Screams follow.

One of the intruders has the sense to grab his fallen friend before the body can drop to the floor, holding it upright to block the doorway. John lodges several bullets into bone and lifeless gristle before running out of ammunition. A grenade would take care of most of his problems, but life is never so generous.

He draws the chef’s knife. Whoever is holding the body up as a meat shield has the right idea, but would be better off keeping their hands out of reach; one grips around the ribs, until John buries the knife into it. He pushes. Bone gives way. Blood soaks the dead man’s jacket and the hand pulls back minus two fingers.

John withdraws to the darkness of the hallway. His night vision is compromised, but not as much as whoever’s still standing in the bedroom. He ducks back into the kitchen, fumbling for the second gun. There are voices in the hallway, speaking furious Spanish. Finally, the light flicks on.

John takes the paring knife from his pocket. He has the advantage still; they won’t have seen what room he entered, and the house will be strange to them. Boots in the hallway. A man steps into view. He carries a machete. From darkness into the light, John throws the paring knife into his face. It lodges in an eye and he follows through with a bullet through the skull, turning to face the remaining intruders.

_Dominicans_, John thinks distantly, spotting gang colours in patches on the three remaining jackets. _Ninjas and Dominicans in the same evening. What the hell is going on?_ He shoots two, a clean head shot and two messy through the chest. One falls sideways into the tall glass windows leading out to the side garden; it gives way beneath him, shattering into diamond shards across the floor. It’s only just been replaced after the last one was broken. It'll have to be replaced again.

What's left of John's patience frays to the point of snapping.

The third man tries to run. John catches him in the doorway to the bedroom, burying the chef’s knife high in his back. He pulls it free, reaches around and jams it into the man’s chest, pushing at an angle just above the collarbone. His hands soak with blood; the knife hilt slips, and John releases it before he can hurt himself. He lets the man fall.

Too late, he realises he should have waited. Should have kept this one alive and asked for some answers. He kneels at the stranger’s side.

“Talk to me,” he snarls, his voice rough with stress and the knowledge that he’s going to have to call in a sizeable dinner reservation, again. “What do you want? I’m _retired, _you don’t get to just walk into my house with machetes. What’s going on?” He presses the heel of his hand against the base of the knife, not quite forcing it deeper. More a suggestion than anything.

A cough from the dying man. Blood on his teeth and tongue.

“High Table,” he gurgles. “Said you were back. You’ve made…a lot of enemies, Mister Wick. They’re coming. We all are.” He rattles into silence, his breathing unsteady. Not quite dead, but not among the living. Finished.

John pulls the knife free. He cuts the man’s throat and leaves his body in the bedroom doorway. Returning to the kitchen, he finally switches the light on, his night vision long since faded. He tries to think.

The High Table. A name he hasn’t heard in years, and not one he ever wanted to hear again. Certainly not now. There’s no reason for them to call an open season on him; he’s done nothing to cause offense. The bratva have a seat, but Viggo isn’t associated with that particular branch. None of the Tarasovs are. Unless things have changed drastically in the last five years, in which case-

Incongruous in the almost silence, to the background tinkle of broken glass, the doorbell rings. John slumps to the floor, leaning against the kitchen cabinet. He has three rounds left. More no doubt on the bodies scattered through his halls and the wreckage of his kitchen, and in a moment he’ll stand and scavenge, hyena among the dead. Drag himself upright to fight off another lion. In a moment. The doorbell stops ringing.

In its absence, John hears the front door click gently open, and remembers far too late that it was never locked in the first place. Three bullets and he’s out. Someone steps into his house.

“John? Are you there?”

Five years and a concrete coffin haven't been enough to decompose the memory of that voice. A hundred years might not be enough. John remembers.

The back of his head strikes the cabinet. It seems unfair that there should be anything left in the world that can hurt him; anything left that can find an unmarked space on his skin to scar over. John rests the gun against one knee, staring up at the ceiling. He considers not answering, and then finds himself doing it anyway. “Santino.”

“Is this a bad time?”

Against his better judgement, John snorts. “No, it’s just…perfect. Come on in. Everyone else is.”

“A busy night, I see.” Santino’s voice gets closer, glass crunching under his shoes. Hurried footfalls behind him; John counts three sets, and wonders how many he isn’t counting. The house will be surrounded. Strangers might try their luck with a man they only know from legend, but Santino is far from a stranger. There’ll be more than three. There'll be an army. “How uncharacteristic; the man I knew was not fond of crowds.”

“I didn’t exactly invite them.”

“Didn’t you?”

“I’m retired.”

“Viggo Tarasov would probably disagree. As would all these dead men. Are you redecorating?”

John gets his knees underneath him. Santino is in the hallway. One corner away, and there is very little cover from where John is kneeling. Wood in the walls, glass panels and decorative tiling. He’ll only have one chance. “If you’re just here to criticise the décor-”

“You know the Colombians have set up a snipers’ nest in the home of your neighbours?” Santino asks casually. He stops just outside the room. “The Mafia took the front of the house first; we had…words, and now they have gone. But there is a triad gang around the back. I don’t know which.”

“I’m guessing you noticed the dead ninjas.”

“Not until you pointed them out.” Santino’s tone is light; he laughs at his own joke, as if he has nothing else planned for his evening but a social visit. Wine on the terrace, slow conversation and the background tinkle of broken glass. Pools of blood. Reminiscence. “I was hoping we could talk, but perhaps this is not the place. Will you come with me?”

“Just skip to the part where we try to kill each other.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Everyone else is.”

“John,” Santino says, with a fondness that has no place here and now. John bites down hard on his tongue. “Think about it. I’m the only person here who has no reason to kill you. Have you forgotten?”

Something skitters across the tiles into the kitchen. John tenses, instincts screaming, _grenade_, muscles already firing to haul him across the room, grabbing the object to throw it back before it tears him to bloody chunks-

A tiny skull winks at him from its place in the small metal disk. _Quod debitum sanquine. _His debt. His blood. His thumb tingles faintly where it cut him, five long years ago. As if it was yesterday. As if only minutes have passed. His freedom reduced to a single red fingerprint in the hands of a man without mercy.

John slumps back down against the kitchen cabinet. “I can’t,” he says blankly, staring at the marker in his hands. “I can’t do…whatever it is. I can’t help you.”

“Gratitude dies quickly,” Santino says. “I know; I have seen it, all my life. And still I believed you were a more honorable man. That you repaid your friends when they risked themselves for you, as I did. Do you remember?”

“This isn’t the best time.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Don’t do this,” John says. The marker bites hard into the meat of his palm. He would have preferred it to be a grenade. “I have every gang in the city coming after me, apparently. The High Table’s involved, and I don’t know why but I know how their grudges end. _I can’t help you_.”

“Not right now,” Santino agrees. “But I can fix this. I can give you a way out, just like I did last time. And when you are safe, maybe we can talk about the marker. Or maybe we don’t need to.”

“_Why_?”

He’s in the doorway, elegant as ever. Suit and silk tie, the old swagger, the uncanny pale eyes. John looks up at him; feels a jolt. Like jerking awake from some hazy, beautiful dream, back into the cold air of reality. Like the last five years don’t exist outside his imagination.

Santino smiles. It still suits him. “We were friends, John. Have you forgotten? We were many, many things, but we were always friends. And this is not the ending I wanted for you. I don’t think it’s what you want for yourself.” He’s almost unchanged. A little older, a little surer. As arrogant as ever. Stepping into John’s ruined kitchen unarmed, trusting his life to the weight of the metal disk clutched in John’s hand, as if death itself is beneath him.

Exhausted, his ribs starting to twinge, John can’t come up with anything to say. He has three bullets and his house is full of strangers. Santino looks around his kitchen with a fascination he reserves for armouries and art galleries.

The dog picks that moment to show its face. Nervous, it dashes out from behind the counter with a whimper, detouring away from John when it sees Santino. It has enough sense not to try and jump on him, but some flawed instinct seems to tell it that he’s fair game for reassurance.

“Hi,” Santino says. And, wonder of wonders, crouches down to look the dog in the eyes. Voice low, he murmurs to it in Italian John doesn’t catch, rubbing its ears with a gentleness rare to him. He looks briefly, truly, charmed.

It saves his life.

The bullets start tearing through walls without warning, ripping gaping chunks from the plaster, the doorway, the cabinets; they scream through the air at chest height, and Santino’s crouch is the only reason he isn’t torn into bloody chunks in their wake.

“Stay down,” John snarls, but the advice is unnecessary. Cursing, Santino dives behind the kitchen cabinets, pulling the dog with him by its collar. They hunker down behind the meager protection as pieces of wall and ruined ceramic rain down from above. A minigun of some kind, John guesses. Not much in the way of aim, but who needs aim with that kind of capacity? He fumbles for the dog’s collar, his hand meeting Santino’s, and together they drag the terrified animal between them. Out in the hallway, someone shrieks.

“One of yours?” John asks loudly. He can barely hear himself. His ears ring.

“I don’t know,” Santino says. “Maybe. John, we can’t stay here. I did not expect to arrive in the middle of a warzone.”

“Apologies for the lack of hospitality,” John snaps. “I’d offer you a drink, but someone just opened fire on my coffee maker.”

“Civilian casualties are always a tragedy.”

Trapped between them, the dog whimpers. John can feel it tremble against his side. How much louder the bullets must sound, how much more frightening for an animal that has no way of understanding what’s going on. It doesn’t deserve this; he owes it more than constant, ceaseless terror. Santino strokes the top of its head and it tries to hide its face against his side.

“I am starting to see why you might kill eighty people for a dog,” Santino murmurs. He glances up, meeting John’s eyes. They don’t quite laugh, but the sensation lingers, out of place in the middle of the destruction. Out of place in the here and now; it belongs to the men they were five years ago, who could laugh at this kind of inhumanity. Maybe Santino still is that man. John is not.

The bullets stop. Out of ammo, time to reload. Or a bluff to see if any survivors stick their head out of the carnage. John inhales dust, the pulverised remnants of his best crockery. He coughs.

“If you’ve secured the front of the house, that’s our way out.” He hates himself for saying it, but there are no other options. “And the dog comes too.”

“Of course.”

“I’m not agreeing to _anything_.” He holds the marker out; for a moment he thinks Santino isn’t going to take it. When he does, it’s with clear reluctance. His expression is not warm.

“It’s good to see you too, John,” he says, sarcasm plain. “You know how happy I am to risk my life for you, any time you have need. And how many more times before you decide to return the favour?”

He’s right. He’s completely right and also wrong, because the man he thinks he’s speaking to doesn’t exist anymore. No one can claim a debt from a memory.

“You can go,” John says quietly. His ribs have taken on a sharp ache that says the painkiller is wearing off; his limbs feel heavy, and the countless sleepless nights of recent months are weighing down on him. This is not where he wants to die. But he may not have a choice in the matter. “I’m done, Santino. I’m tired. And I’m sorry, but you’re going to need to find someone else for whatever it is. I can’t repay any more favours.”

The dog noses at his side. John bites back a curse, pushing its nose away. He sees the blood; a fist-sized patch, spreading through the white cotton of his shirt. Looks like the stitches have torn out. He wonders if the wound will ever heal. With his track record, he wouldn’t count on it.

“Were you shot?” Santino asks. He’s very calm, but he has the decency to tug the dog away from where it’s trying to lick at John’s injury.

“Stabbed. A couple of days ago. It hasn’t healed yet.”

“You’re in pain.”

“Yeah. So what’s new?”

Santino looks at him; his expression is unreadable. Then, he nods. “Fine,” he says. “No favours. I’ll get you out for the sake of our past; for friendship. And for the dog.”

“I appreciate it,” John starts, but Santino isn’t listening. He leans out from the safety of the cabinets, hissing a couple of names. From out in the hallway, John hears responses. Hears relief, and realises Santino’s guards had no way of knowing he was still alive. Santino mutters orders in fast, muted Italian.

John tries to make sense of what’s being said. He’s rusty, but that’s no excuse when his life depends on it, and he _can_ understand. He knows the language. Learnt it, slow, painstaking and poorly, but learnt it nonetheless, because his job required it of him. However many winces his accent provoked-

_And he knows the only time he’s ever really grasped the vowel sounds is in murmuring Santino’s name. Because it mattered to him that he said it right. Because he practiced, hundreds of times in the slow afternoons and quiet evenings, drawing out the sounds with the slow drag of his hands up the other man’s bare flanks. Another lifetime ago._

John blinks, forcing himself back to the present. There’s movement out in the hall. He keeps his gun ready.

A woman appears in the doorway. She's familiar; short hair, tattoos, blood smeared all over one of her hands. Ares. Still alive after all these years. Probably still vicious; definitely still unfriendly. She has a smile for Santino and a look of pure hatred for John. He suspects that the blood belongs to someone else. It usually does.

_Albanians,_ she signs, jerking her head in the direction the bullets came from. _They stopped to talk with the triads. Come on._ She beckons.

“Time to go,” Santino says. He grabs the dog by the collar, pulling it with him as he ducks through the doorway. John lifts his gun and follows.

There are shadows crouched in the hallway outside, black suits, black guns, stiff professionalism. Communication happens in gestures. No one stands upright; the glass windows on one side are utterly demolished, open to the elements. It’s too dark to see anything outside, but the minigun is stationed somewhere in that direction, and they are all keenly aware that it could open fire again at any time. One by one, they make a run for the remains of the front door. John sticks close to Santino and the dog. It’s the only way he can stop himself from giving in to the mad impulse that tells him to turn around, to go back, to stay. To go down with his home and his memories.

There are more guards outside; they have something of a perimeter set up around several parked vehicles, rifles and shotguns at the ready. Ares approaches one of them; he says something to her, and the look on his face is not promising. Her own expression is grim when she comes back to Santino, John at his side.

_There’s a problem,_ she signs.

Santino doesn’t blink. “What now?”

Ares lifts her hands so John can see them clearly. She spells out the letters one by one, and he can’t help but feel that it’s meant for him. That she wants him to see exactly what kind of trouble he’s brought on her ward, and her staff.

_T A N K._

“You’re kidding,” John says flatly. But she isn’t; she’s never had much of a sense of humour, and the jokes she prefers are not things he’s ever laughed at. “Who is it?”

“Bratva, probably,” Santino says. “It doesn’t matter; we’re leaving. Let the other gangs deal with it.”

_They won’t let us go with him_. Ares points at John. He bites back aggression, the anger he knows she wants from him. He will not engage.

“I am not going to tell them he is with us,” Santino says. “Or let them search my vehicles. John, get in the car. Stay low.”

John doesn’t argue. He slides into the back of the closest vehicle, behind tinted glass and bulletproofing that won’t offer any protection at all if a tank opens fire on them. It’s hard not to feel like a target. Helpless. A few seconds later, Santino pushes the dog in with him.

“There shouldn’t be any trouble,” he says. Behind him, John hears hurried footsteps, the slamming of car doors. Santino moves out of the way to allow a large black crate to be placed on the back seat next to John.

“Do I want to know what that is?”

“The backup plan,” Santino says. He closes the door, cutting off his cold laugh.

John nudges the dog out of the way, leaning over the seat to crack open the latches on the crate.

It is, of course, a grenade launcher. He closes the lid, leaving it unlatched. He doesn’t have it in him to feel surprised. And he highly doubts it was brought to fight off tanks. There was another target in mind.

The doors at the front of the car open; a driver enters one side, and Santino takes the passenger seat. He turns to look at John.

“If we’re stopped, I’ll talk. You’re not here.”

“You brought a grenade launcher.”

“Yeah. So?”

“I thought you weren’t expecting trouble.”

“I was expecting _you_, John,” Santino says. “Now stay down, if you want to stay alive.” He turns away.

They drive. The tank and its convoy meet them on the road just outside John’s house; the encounter is short, fraught, uneventful. John crouches in the back, dog held close, while Santino winds the window down and exchanges a chilly greeting with whoever is leading the new group. John catches fragments; _the Albanians got there first. A shame they didn’t wait. Why is everyone in such a hurry around here? _They’re allowed to pass unhindered, and John returns to his seat, buckling in automatically.

Exhaustion washes over him, eating at the edges of his vision. The dog is curled uncomfortably next to him, cooped up between John’s hip and the solid black case. It keeps trying to lick at his wounded ribs. He pushes it away mechanically.

An explosion hits behind them. Incongruous in the quiet neighbourhood, a sound from another time, another man’s life. An act of war in Eden; a siege engine at the pearly gates. Paradise set alight and sullied. John twists in his seat, peering through the back window. There’s nothing to see. And yet he’s convinced he sees fire on the horizon. He feels nothing.

The dog whines in his lap. It shivers occasionally. He doesn’t know how to help it.

“I’m guessing that was my house,” John says. His own voice sounds oddly distant, like he’s hearing himself talk from a long way away. Like he’s not as present as he usually is. He closes his eyes.

_He’s back home on the couch, a book in his lap, coffee at his elbow and a sunrise on his horizon. It’s early in the morning. Helen sleeps in on weekends. But she’ll be up in fifteen minutes or so, and until then he’s happy to wait. He’s happy._

Another explosion sounds in the distance.

“Really,” Santino says. “I understand making a statement, but after a certain point it becomes vulgar. Oh, you have a tank? How nice for you. No one is impressed.”

John opens his eyes. He’s in a car. Italian leather on the seats, the low rumble of an engine that isn’t being pushed as far as it would like to be. His own car is probably in pieces all over the lawn. Crushed under the treads of tank. Reduced to dust like all the other things he values.

He’s going to need to get rid of the dog; its chances don’t look good if it stays with him.

It’s a long time before sirens start up. Like the local police, the fire department knows exactly who lives in John’s house, and why it’s a bad idea to respond too quickly to calls in his area. He’s always respected that; emergency services are in no way prepared for the kinds of problems his old world dredges up.

But just this once, he wishes they’d hurry. There might be enough of the house left to save. Photographs. Mementoes. Memories. A life. If they could save just one thing, it might be enough.

The car winds down increasingly unfamiliar roads, leaving the fire behind.


	3. Beneath Gravity and the Guillotine Blade

John doesn’t know how long they drive for. There are moments where the road and the street lights blur together, and he can’t say for sure if he’s awake for it all. The dog is an unwieldy mass in his lap. The shivering seems to have stopped, but its eyes are open every time he looks at it. However many times he rubs its ears, he can’t calm its anxious expression. Fair enough. Who is he to tell it that either of them is safe now?

Santino is quiet for the most part. He receives a call at some point; the conversation is carried in muttered Italian, in tones that range from exasperated to firm. John catches the name _Gianna_. It immediately explains Santino’s irritation.

Eventually they come to a halt at a set of gates. A guard comes over to speak to the driver; he takes one look at Santino and backs off. The gates are opened. Slowly, they pass down a long driveway, gravel crunching under tyres, the shadows of trees only half perceptible through the car’s tinted windows. John doesn’t bother trying to get the lay of the land. He should; he’s very much aware that he has no idea where he is, or how he might leave if he wants to. The way the driveway loops, he’s no longer sure where they entered. The gate and the guards make a cage he’d rather not be in.

“We’re here,” Santino says as the car comes to a halt. “Gianna is waiting inside, and you need a doctor. Is the dog hurt?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Good. I was worried about the broken glass.” He opens the door. John follows him out to the house.

Gianna’s place is a looming building, the details hidden in darkness. It’ll be beautiful by daylight. Everything Gianna owns is beautiful. There are lights on in the entryway, armed guards that John does and doesn’t recognise, none of whom look him in the eye. They watch his movements instead, every twitch of his hands, every step. He makes them nervous. They were given very little notice, and now the Boogeyman is under their roof. John sympathises. He’d rather not be here either.

Santino leads him up a flight of marble stairs, the dog clinging to his ankles, glancing constantly over its shoulder to check that John is keeping up. And he is, though slowly. Every stair is a knife to his ribs. He limps perceptibly, and knows that the guards have seen it.

At the top of the stairs, Santino enters a room, greeting his sister with a pointed lack of enthusiasm.

“Gianna. I see we didn’t wake you.”

_“_Santino, I - _where _did you find that dog?” John hears her ask. “My god, it’s ugly.”

“So is your soul, but for some reason I still love you,” Santino says. “The dog belongs to John. Be kind. He is having a difficult day.”

“You brought John here? Why didn’t you say?” Gianna turns as John steps into the room. She astounds; earrings and high heels, a long black dress and tailored coat. Just returned from a party, or maybe about to leave. John has no idea what the time is. And still he finds he’s glad to see her.

“Gianna,” he says. “Sorry to impose.”

She waves off his apology before it’s finished, crossing the room to touch his shoulders and kiss his cheeks. “You’re never an imposition; it’s good to see you. Even better to see you _alive_. The High Table is not pleased with you.”

“Apparently.”

“Do they know you’re here?”

“I’m not sure,” John tells her honestly. He owes Gianna that; if this is her home, he owes her the truth. She should know what kind of hell he’s bringing down on her. “I don’t think we were followed, but I can’t guarantee it.”

“Ares is checking,” Santino says. “So far, nothing. We were quick, and the others were distracted. They may believe that you were killed inside your house. It will be several days before the ashes are cold enough to investigate, which buys us some time.” He’s careless, businesslike about it; but of course, it’s not his house, not his memories still smoking on their wrecked foundations.

If the grenade launcher is anything to go by, he came prepared to start a few fires of his own.

John bites down on a bitter retort, turning away to look around the room. It’s…ostentatious. Very much to Gianna’s tastes; marble and mirrors, candles on tables. He doubts any of the décor is less than a century old. All authentic. Overwhelming. He’s struck hard with the impression that he shouldn’t be here. He doesn’t belong. The impression isn’t at all helped by Santino lightly clasping his shoulder and leaving the room, dog at his heels. Abandoning John to Gianna’s questionable mercy.

“John, please, sit,” Gianna says. “You look as tired as I feel.” She leads by example, taking one of the leather couches and bending down to undo the straps of her black heels. She kicks them off gracelessly. Rubs at her toes with a wince, and John finds himself smiling faintly, despite everything. He takes the couch opposite.

“Santino is calling a doctor for your injuries,” she tells him. “And bothering my chef. She does not like him much, and she will like him less when he tells her he wants prime steak for that ugly dog.”

“It’s not ugly,” John says automatically. Gianna snorts.

“It is ugly,” she says. “And it raises some questions. I was told that your vengeance against the Tarasov family was on account of a dog. The son killed your dog, so you killed him.”

“He also stole my car.”

“Which was returned to you.”

“Not for long.”

“That is not relevant,” Gianna says. She leans forward. Gone is the woman of minutes ago, who kicked off her expensive shoes and scowled over blisters. She looks at him; he looks back and sees authority. The D’Antonio heiress. The Camorra’s merciless princess. “The car was returned undamaged. The dog is gone, but you have a new one. Meanwhile, Iosef Tarasov is dead, and Viggo cannot replace him as easily as you replace a dog.”

“It’s _not_ a replacement-”

“Viggo has gone to the High Table for vengeance,” she interrupts, and John falls silent. “He claims that you wronged him. Yes, his son misbehaved; there is no denying it. But Viggo claims he contacted you and asked to make amends. You ignored him. Instead, you murdered eighty of his soldiers and then slaughtered his only heir. All for a dog, which you then replaced. He demands justice. And John? He has a case. The High Table is listening.”

“They’ve never liked me much,” John mutters. None of this should come as a surprise, and still he finds himself shaken. There’s something to hearing it laid out in Gianna’s faintly accusatory tone. _How could you not have thought this through, John? How could you be so stupid?_

“You’re not _excommunicado_,” she says. “Not yet. But they have declared your retirement finished, and…suggested that they would not retaliate, if you were to be killed. They are still hearing Viggo’s case; soon they will come to a decision. If it is not in your favour then a price is placed on your head.”

“The High Table has deep pockets.”

“And many, many friends,” Gianna says. “More than you. You’re fucked, John. I’m sorry.”

“Only if they make a judgment.” Santino is back, quiet on the thick carpets. The dog has vanished. He nudges John’s shoulder; John turns, accepting the large glass of bourbon that is given to him. Gratitude is a strong enough force to smother the apprehension as Santino settles into the couch at his side, lifting a glass of wine in silent toast. He’s brought nothing for Gianna. Her raised eyebrows show that she’s noticed the snub.

“Do you plan to stop the judgement?” she asks dryly. “Your arrogance is astonishing. As usual.”

Santino shrugs. He rests an ankle on one knee, leaning back into the couch like he owns it. “And you lack vision, as usual. We don’t have to stop the judgment; we have to make it so that John is untouchable. If they cannot pass judgement, Viggo’s case collapses. John is safe.”

“Who’s safe from the High Table?” John sips his bourbon. It’s astonishingly good. Better than anything he’d keep in the house, and easily on a level with the Continental’s supply. The depth of it settles on his tongue, settling his nerves in turn.

“Very few people,” Gianna says. “The ones who hold seats, of course. And their immediate family. Their heirs.” She and Santino exchange a look that John can’t begin to decipher. But there’s an edge to Gianna’s tone, pointed and deeply personal. A question comes to mind.

“Your father-” John stops. The look on Gianna’s face is something he wishes he hadn’t seen. She links her hands in her lap, her knuckles white with tension.

“You didn’t tell him?” she asks Santino.

“There was no time.”

“Yes,” she says, suddenly quiet. “There was. But you wanted to make _me_ say it, and of course you get your way. As always.”

There’s a gap in the conversation, a pit that opens up like a sinkhole between the things neither of them is saying, and abruptly John understands. He’s familiar with that kind of emptiness. With the raw edges where memories haven’t yet replaced reality. The sense that, any moment now, someone will enter a room.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he says. His throat catches on the rest of the platitudes; he’s been on the receiving end of so many recently, and he can’t continue. There’s nothing left in him to give.

“And for yours,” Santino says. His knee brushes John’s. It doesn’t feel like an accident. “I should have said it earlier, but…I was sorry to hear about your wife. This month has not been kind to any of us.” He’s not looking at Gianna; she avoids him in turn. John has rarely felt so much like an outsider in a room.

It must be incredibly recent. They fight like he always remembers, the push and pull no one ever wins, hurting each other, hurting themselves. Neither seems to have the upper hand, and that means the family’s High Table seat is…what? Empty? Still unassigned?

“My condolences,” Gianna says. She stares at her hands. The black dress makes sense now; the earrings are far more muted than her usual. “They must have been within days of each other.”

“Two days apart,” Santino murmurs. John glances at him; he’s not prepared for the genuine sympathy in Santino’s eyes. There’s nothing insincere about it. This is real.

Five years, slipping away. They were close. They were a lot of things, and they were close. He remembers. Despite his family, his upbringing, his bred-in arrogance and superiority, Santino has occasional moments of astonishing humanity.

“I was in Napoli,” he says quietly. “Making arrangements for…yeah. I couldn’t fly back in time for her funeral, and I regret that. I hope you were not alone.”

“Marcus came,” John says. It’s harder than it should be; his throat is closing, grief and gratitude. He lets the sentence end where it lies. No one picks up the loose thread. His knee presses hard against Santino’s, and John finds himself glad for the contact. He sips bourbon, waiting to be calm again. No doubt the other two are doing the same.

He shouldn’t be here. This is not his world anymore.

“So you see that we have a problem,” Gianna says eventually. Her cheeks are flushed, but she sits upright, relaxing her hands. She’s in control again. “The High Table keeps the will. There should have been a reading this week, but they announced a delay. Because of the case they are considering.”

“Viggo’s.”

“Yes.”

“And until the will is read, our father’s wishes remain a mystery,” Santino says. “Who rises to paradise? Who is cast down to burn with the damned?”

“So dramatic,” Gianna snaps. “Always, why can’t you just- whoever doesn’t have the seat still has the Camorra. No one will be destitute.”

“But there is only one throne.”

“Yes,” Gianna says. “And we both know who it belongs to. It’s just a matter of waiting.”

“I should go,” John says. “This isn’t a good time-”

Gianna makes a dismissive gesture. “No one is reading the will until this is settled,” she says. “And I have seen enough death for one month; I am tired of it. If Santino thinks he knows of a way to save your life, then I am ready to talk. Now, more than ever, we should remember who our friends are.”

_Friendship_ is never a simple concept where the Camorra is concerned. Where anyone is concerned, in the world John left behind him. Undercurrents like rip tides in an outwardly inviting ocean. Expectations and favours and history. There’s no such thing as a simple friendship.

Simplicity is something John has spent five years learning to appreciate. Now, he finds himself slipping back into the old complex mindsets. Who owes him? What does he owe? What can he leverage to ensure his own survival, and what price is he willing to pay?

The marker sits at the back of his mind, like a spider surveying a room. Unmoving. Unaddressed. Present at all times.

“You are immune from the High Table’s justice if you join our family,” Santino says. “It is simple. Elegant, even.”

“Not as simple as it sounds,” Gianna says, but her eyes are narrowed. Thoughtful. John tries not to feel cornered.

_Family_. Another concept layered in pitfalls, hidden traps buried under quicksand. And the family in question sits at the apex of an unsteady structure; the Camorra was never intended for hierarchy. Never shaped like the Mafia. The D’Antonio prince and princess make their claim to power, but they fight for it on a daily basis. Clawing the stragglers back into the fold. Fighting schisms like miniature housefires, every moment of their existence. This is the inheritance their father left them. Without a High Table seat, they’d have no hope of keeping their empire steady.

This delay in the will reading is fraying at more than sibling affection, such as it is. By now it must be fraying their power base.

“I’m a little old to be adopted,” John says. As if the shape of their plan isn’t already looking clearer, and less avoidable by the second. As if he can’t feel phantom manacles tightening on his wrists.

“You are,” Gianna agrees. “But I suspect my brother has something different in mind.”

“I do,” Santino says. He leans back into the couch, and makes them wait as he sips his wine. Until he’s ready. “John. How would you feel about marrying me?”

And there it is. Plainer than John was expecting. Out in the open and unavoidable, and he saw it coming but has no idea how to respond.

A ring already sits on his finger. It’s all he has left. Everything else was taken; ashes to ashes, still smoking gently. Too hot to sift through for signs that he ever existed. He can’t do this. And he can’t afford not to. He’s not ready to die.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Gianna murmurs. “But it is a good plan. No matter which of us inherits the seat, you would be protected. We could protect you.” She leans forward on the couch, hands folded over one of her knees. There’s a look on her face that John has seen on many occasions; victory, dominance, the surety of her own success. The expression she wears at the moment of someone else’s defeat. When she takes all the things she wants and then a few others, just to make her point clear. When she’s winning, and wants it known.

It’s not John that she’s looking at.

Santino meets her gaze. His smile is cold. “It is a good plan. One we could all benefit from. Assuming John agrees, of course.”

“And it would not have to be forever. A year or two, and when the High Table moves on-”

“You can still be free.”

They both turn to him and John stiffens under their combined stares. Not so much caught between an unstoppable force and an immovable object as beneath the weight of gravity and the guillotine blade.

He can’t do this. He can’t not. And with every second that passes, five years slip just a little further away from his fingertips. Like a fallen gold leaf caught up in a river current. He reaches. Misses. Reaches again.

“I need to think about it,” John says. “I need…time.” But they don’t have time, and it won’t be long before someone starts digging through the ruins of his home and discovers an absence of human remains. Maybe even less time before someone in the D’Antonio household talks about the stranger under their roof. He doesn’t know all the guards. He’s so far out of his depth.

“John, _think_,” Gianna says. “This is your only chance. How many others would be offered this kind of honour?”

“None.” Santino’s tone is heavy with a meaning John isn’t ready to consider.

He was retired. He earned his peace, with blood and pain and sacrifice. He was done. He was owed an ending. Helen was owed that ending.

“I just _buried_ my _wife_,” he says quietly.

He doesn’t know what it is that silences them both. They see or hear something that warns them they’re on the edge of pushing too far; that John is looking for a reason to snap, and to hell with the casualties.

“This is not a game to me.” He’s not sure either of them understands. “This is my life. My memories, and my future. So I’d appreciate it if you could…show a little respect.” He sets the half-full glass of bourbon on the coffee table in front of him and stands, one hand instinctively moving to shield his aching ribs. The bloodstain has spread across his stomach and halfway up his chest, but it doesn’t seem to be moving any further. It hurts. There’s not an inch of him that doesn’t hurt in various ways, and he is so tired.

“Turn right as you leave this room,” Santino says. He doesn’t move to get up and lead the way; maybe he senses that his company is the last thing John wants right now. “The second room on the left is yours. Sleep well, if you can. At least get some rest. We can talk in the morning…with a little more respect.”

“_Buonanotte,_” Gianna echoes. “Sleep well.”

John turns his back on them both and makes for the doorway. He’s only halfway across the room when he hears the whispered argument start up in Italian. He doesn’t care enough to listen in. Let the lions fight. They’re not his problem.

Out on the landing, he closes the heavy wooden door behind him. There are guards, of course. Armed. John glances at their weapons and then turns right, where a long hallway leads to what he very much hopes is a room he can rest in. Dotted with paintings, statues, artworks that don’t interest him. In the room he’s just left, he hears Gianna raise her voice in anger. Santino is only a second behind. It doesn’t matter.

From behind him, someone speaks.

“John?” John turns at the startled greeting, and blinks.

“Cassian?” He looks as he did five years ago; wary, stiff with the weight of hard-earned professionalism. There’s nothing welcoming in his expression.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I could say the same for you. Since when have you worked for the D’Antonio family?”

“Not the whole family,” Cassian says. He shifts on his feet. His jacket bulges outwards over a holster. “Just Gianna. She hired me on as her head of security a couple of months after you retired. Been here ever since. You?”

“I…have no idea. It’s a long story.”

“Yeah. Sure. With you, it always is.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“John,” Cassian says. “I’m going to be clear. I _like_ this job. I like my ward; Gianna’s something really special. I’m sticking with her. When she gets that High Table seat, I’m going to be right behind her, watching her back. And now I see you, and I start wondering if my job is about to get a lot harder.”

“I don’t have any quarrel with Gianna D’Antonio. She’s a friend.”

“How about her brother? Is he your friend too?”

“Yeah. He is. Cassian, what is this about?”

Cassian nods back towards the closed door. The raised voices, male and female, furious Italian. “Those two fight like cats and dogs; you know that. I always saw how careful you had to be, not to show favouritism. But only one of them is getting the High Table seat. And the one that misses out isn’t going to like it one bit. So I’m asking you again, John. What the hell are you doing here? Are you taking a contract for Santino?”

There’s no answer John can give to that. Technically, he supposes it’s a form of contract. A different kind of dog collar. And not one he’s accepted yet; definitely not one he plans on discussing with Cassian.

Something else stands out. “Sounds like you think Gianna’s getting the seat, and Santino might try take it off her. Maybe you’re right. But what happens if it’s the other way around?”

“It won’t be.”

“And if it is?”

Cassian shrugs. “Then I take my orders from Signora D’Antonio. Whatever those orders are.”

Something nasty prickles under John’s skin. He looks Cassian up and down; starts sizing him up like he would have done a lifetime ago, when he walked in another man’s clothes with weapons ever-present at his fingertips. Cassian’s a bit younger. Less experience, more stamina. He might not know all the tricks John picked up from the old guard, Marcus and Winston and the like. He might know new ones John’s never seen. And he’ll die for Gianna; it’s written in his eyes.

Whether or not John is willing to do the same for Santino is a different question.

He thinks about the marker. His blood, his debt. His promise. Santino came to claim it, that much is clear; walked into a siege he wasn’t expecting, and adjusted plans accordingly. The situation’s changed so much it’s barely recognisable. Maybe that’ll be enough to make him reconsider. Maybe he’ll decide that calling in a marker from his own husband isn’t actually a good way to keep the wedding bliss…blissful. Maybe he’ll look at himself in one of Gianna’s many mirrors and actually try a bit of self-reflection for a change.

Cassian gives a grim nod. “Yeah, that’s what I was worried about.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You never do. That’s fine. You keep your secrets, and I’ll keep mine. And if we end up on opposite sides of a weapon, I’ll try to make it quick for you.”

“As a _professional courtesy_?” John asks. The sarcasm bites unfamiliar on his tongue.

Cassian doesn’t blink. “I heard about your wife. I’m sorry, John. For all of us. Have a good night.” With the final metaphorical punch to the gut, he turns away and heads back down the stairs. Leaves John to limp his solitary way down the corridor in the opposite direction, seething with helpless rage and the weighted grip of a world he wants to leave, that keeps dragging him back.

The second door on the left is ajar; there’s a stranger waiting inside. A woman, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, a medical kit set up on a nearby coffee table and surgical gloves covering her hands. She turns as he enters.

“Mister Wick?” she asks. “Good evening. What am I looking at here? Bullet wound?”

“Stabbing. Broken glass bottle. I had stitches, but they tore out.”

“Not a problem,” she says briskly, and points him to a nearby chair, reaching for a pair of scissors to start cutting his shirt away. She is reassuringly reticent about her work. Doesn’t offer her name. Doesn’t ask for more details. John wonders if she’s familiar with the Continental. Almost certainly, if she doesn’t object to being called out at night to a Camorra household.

As she gets to work on the gash in his side, John feels something nudge one of his hands. He glances down. The dog looks up at him. Again it nudges his hand, until he takes the hint and strokes its silky ears. If the wag of its tail is anything to go by, it was well-treated in the kitchen.

“Don’t get used to steak every day,” he tells it. “You’re a dog. You eat dog food.” Still, it’s a welcome distraction from the prick of the doctor’s needle, the pull of the thread. He regrets leaving his glass of bourbon behind. But he’d take a hundred thousand stitches before getting up to go and retrieve it.

The doctor finishes quickly. She doesn’t linger over packing up her tools, bagging his ruined shirt up with her bloody cotton swabs.

“Keep it covered in the shower.” She sets a couple of boxes of plastic wrapping on the table. “But you know that already.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“See you next time,” she says, and leaves before he can tell her he seriously hopes not. Also on the table, a familiar orange bottle of pills. John wrestles with his pride before taking one and going to find the shower.

He’s too tired to explore the room, or perform the usual safety checks. Tired, and very much confident that Gianna D’Antonio knows how to handle security within her own household. And if she doesn’t, Cassian certainly does. John leaves the door to the hallway slightly ajar, in case the dog wants to wander in the night. He won’t be attacked. Not here.

If nothing else, Gianna and Santino both possess a code of honour they abide by. Gianna will not harm a guest she has offered sanctuary to. Just as Santino would not call in the marker as long as John stayed retired. Within the limits of their personal codes, they can be trusted. In that, and nothing else. These are the things he needs to start remembering.

On his back in the comfortable bed, John stares at the ceiling. The dog is a weight against one of his legs, already snoring gently. He closes his eyes.

_There’s a moment in the night where the covers shift, the weight ratio on the mattress changing, and John wakes just enough to think, _Santino_. Hazed with sleep and the deep ache of healing, he moves to make room in the bed. Lifts an arm to drape around the other man’s shoulders, and “go easy on me, I’m hurting” is already on the tip of his tongue-_

_But it’s just the dog, standing and jumping off the side of the bed, loping out into the hallway. Alone, John goes back to sleep. He forgets the inexplicable sense of disappointment._

When he opens his eyes, greying light slips through the curtains he forgot to close. His mind feels a little clearer. John sits up. He regrets it immediately as his ribs shriek in protest, but the orange bottle is on the nightstand, and he takes one of the tablets to silence them. The clock on the wall tells him it’s not quite dawn. The dog is gone. That hurts him more than it should.

Waiting for the painkiller to take effect, John lies back under the covers.

He’ll have to make a decision today. It’s a surreal feeling; not twelve hours ago, he was back at home. Walking his own hallways, showing the dog around the rooms he wanted it to inhabit. Trying to convince himself that he really was done. A mistake, in hindsight. And now there’s no home to go back to. Just a choice that isn’t really a choice, and an end to his hard-earned peace.

John drags himself out of bed before the sadness can weigh him down too much to make the effort worthwhile. The remains of his clothes from the day before sit where he left them; nearby, John spots a different pile. A gift from his hosts; clean and well-fitted, comfortable. Long past the point of pride, John pulls on the new clothes. He steps out into the hallway.

It’s empty. That’s unsurprising; the guard shifts will be changing soon, and there’s not much point having people walking up and down past the bedrooms all night long. Better to watch the entrances and exits, and station people within shouting range.

There’s one other unfamiliar room on the landing before the stairs. The door is ajar; John hesitates, but the privacy of his hosts is outweighed by his need to start understanding the layout of this house. He pushes the door further open and glances inside.

Another guest room, much like his own. Santino is stretched out asleep, bare shoulders exposed, breathing steady. The dog lies next to him. It opens its eyes, spotting John and wagging its tail gently.

_Traitor, _John mouths. He’s relieved; if it won’t stay with him, it still has the sense to find someone else who cares enough to keep it alive. He hasn’t forgotten the spark of warmth on Santino’s face when he first saw the dog. Clearly, a bond is forming. The steak dinner can’t have hurt.

Staring him down, the dog wags its tail again. Its enthusiasm gives them both away; in the bed, Santino opens his eyes. Rolls to his back and sees John in the doorway.

They watch each other.

“Hi,” Santino says eventually.

“_Buongiorno,_” John responds. “That’s my dog.”

“Yeah. It ran in last night, I don’t know when. One of the guards scared it. It’s jumpy.” Santino stretches. His hair is a mess of curls, untamed and untidy. It makes him look younger than usual. “Come in, if you want. There will be coffee in the kitchen in twenty minutes. Or you can go early. The chef will hate you either way.”

“Me? Or just you?”

“If you want to go downstairs and find out, be my guest.”

“Think I’ll give it a miss. But thanks.” John takes the empty side of the bed, pulling his shoes off and sitting cross-legged with the pillow at his back. He considers staying above the covers, but the morning is cold, and he hasn’t woken up enough to decide it’s a bad idea. He tugs them up to his waist. Santino turns to face him.

“I owe you an apology, John,” he says. “For yesterday. You were right; I should have been respectful of your loss, and I was not. I will be more careful.”

“I’d appreciate that.” It’s hard to remember yesterday’s anger, seeing Santino like this. Unshaven, inelegant, his hair a bird’s nest on the pillow. Five years and change since John last ran his hands through it.

It feels just the same as it did the last time. John lets his fingers gently work through the night’s tangles, never tugging hard enough to hurt. Santino’s eyes slip closed.

“I always liked you doing that,” he murmurs. “It is a good start to the day.”

John doesn’t let himself hesitate. There’s no point fighting the inevitable. Swim with the tide, or die to the undertow. “Guess I’ll be doing it more often once we’re married.”

Slowly, Santino opens his eyes. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” They lapse back into silence. There’s nothing else to be said.


	4. The Last of a Dying Sunset

“Winston, I need a favour. And you’re not going to like it.” The dog tears at Gianna’s perfect lawns with its paws and muzzle, snuffling after some kind of insect, or just a shadow on the grass. The stick he threw for it lies forgotten a few feet away. John grips the unfamiliar phone carefully. He tries not to think too hard about what might have happened to his own.

On the other end of the line, Winston sighs. “Why does this not surprise me? I suppose you’ve heard about the situation with the High Table.”

“Yeah, I kind of noticed all the people trying to kill me. Not to mention the tank opening fire on my _house_.”

“Viggo Tarasov is many things, but forgiving he is not. I’m a little surprised to be hearing from you at all; word in the parlour is that you perished amidst the smoking ruins of your home.”

“I had…help.”

“As you so often do,” Winston says. “And now you ask for mine. Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. Out with it. What do you need?”

John bends down to pick up the stick. He waves it in front of the dog, distracting it from what looks like a sincere attempt to dig through to China. Or at least down to the sewer pipes. It sits back on its haunches, watching the stick unblinkingly. John throws. The dog turns to watch the stick soar across the lawn, before going back to its digging. Dirt and grass go flying in all directions.

“A couple of things,” John says. He considers going to the dog, grabbing its collar and hauling it away before the hole can get worse. But it doesn’t do too well with surprises and sudden movements. One slammed door earlier in the morning had it diving for cover under a bed. It trembled the whole time he coaxed it out.

He leaves it to the digging.

“I’m stopping by this afternoon. Might be staying a few days, depending on how the High Table wants to respond to what I’m about to do.”

“You know the Continental always has room for you, Jonathan. You only ever have to ask. But I must warn you, my authority will not be enough to shield you from the Table’s idea of vengeance, if vengeance is what they seek.”

“That’s fine,” John says. “I’m not asking you to be my meat shield. Someone else volunteered.”

“That sounds promising.”

“Yeah. Does the Continental still do weddings?”

John hangs up a few minutes later. Sense-memory has him glancing at the phone screen as the call ends; the generic background is an unpleasant jolt to the gut. He doesn’t have any pictures of Helen with him. The lack has him antsy, anxious. He needs to see her. Needs proof that the last five years haven’t been some dizzying fever dream suffered in the aftermath of a failed Impossible Task. That he won’t wake up in a hospital bed after days comatose, to Viggo’s face and false sympathy.

He still has the ring on his finger. But that’s one of the reasons he’s out alone on Gianna’s manicured grounds, the guards keeping their distance and the infernal duo out of sight back in the mansion. The ring has to go, so a new one can sit in its place. And John doesn’t want anyone seeing him remove it.

There’s a desolate sense of occasion about the whole thing; like he should give some kind of speech, something thin and inadequate, something hollow but still expected. John doesn’t have anything. No apology will ever be enough.

“I’m doing what you wanted,” he says at last. “Surviving. Not giving up. And I tried to come up with another way, but I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m going back where I came from.”

The ring slides far too easily from his finger; he tucks it into a pocket, lingering until he can’t bear to.

Then he calls to the dog, and heads back to the mansion.

They take separate cars to the Continental, a tinted, bullet-proofed convoy that screams _mob money_ louder even than the bodyguards in sleek black Armani packing weapons marked Benelli and Beretta. Security is heavy, though in theory no one knows John’s still alive. His own vehicle pulls away from the pack as they approach their destination, taking a shorter route that drops him off at the Continental’s doors in advance. He’s inside before anyone can get a close enough took at his face to realise. The dog clings to his ankle like it’s glued there. Like its life depends on having his shadow to hide in.

“Mister Wick,” says Charon. “Back so soon? And on such a happy occasion.”

He knows, of course. There is no secret in the underworld that doesn’t find its way across Charon’s counter eventually.

“No congratulations necessary,” John says. “But I’m going to need someone to mind the dog for a day or so. Someone patient. It won’t be for long.” He says it as much for the dog’s benefit as for Charon’s. It’s for the best. The only things he’s brought this animal so far are bullets and fear. For some reason, it still thinks he’s worth trusting.

It tilts its head to peer up at Charon, towering behind his counter. They look at each other. Some kind of message seems to get through.

“We have no specialists on our staff,” Charon tells him. “But I would be honoured to take care of this dog, for as long as you require. Does it have a-”

“No name,” John says. “But thank you. It likes…” _ageing assassins and Italian crime lords, expensive steaks, digging up other people’s lawns. It’s a good dog. _“I won’t be gone long,” he settles for. “Also. Do I still have a safe in the vault downstairs?”

“Yes, Mister Wick. In perpetuity.”

“Okay. Good. Could you put this in there for me?” He pulls a blank envelope from his pocket. Taken from a writing desk back at the mansion, protection for its precious contents. There is no safer place he can think of for his wedding ring. He hands it over with reluctance; Charon takes it carefully, cradling it in both hands. There’s no way he can tell what’s inside. And still, he treats it with reverence.

“I will see to it, sir,” he says. “If you are ready, the manager will meet you in the chapel. Or if you would like somewhere to gather your thoughts beforehand-“

“No, I’ll go now. The other groom’s arriving separately.”

“Very wise. Given the circumstances.”

“Circumstances change,” John says, and heads for the chapel alone.

He’s never been there before, like most of the Continental’s guests. And like most guests, he knows exactly where the half-mythical room is to be found. One floor down from the library, two up from the armoury. A heavy oak door with no lock and no sign, where no one enters uninvited.

The walls seem to move as he enters, shifting like smoke, stinging the eye; they’re made of glass, hazy in the half-light, crazed with age. The pews line up in black carved oak, rough and undecorative. There are candles. Stone floors. Pride of place behind the altar, a grotesque statue writhes in the flickering light. It defies the eye to focus on. A segment of feathered wing, a woman’s veil or wedding canopy, a bow and arrows, a flute, a sun, myrtle and roses and countless indistinguishable bodies, wrapped around and within each other.

Winston is standing on a dais in front of the statue. He has an enormous book with him, old and faded, each half held up by a heavy metal stand. He doesn’t look happy.

“Jonathan,” he says. “It is, as ever, a pleasure. I should warn you that a High Table Investigator has booked a room for tomorrow. As has Viggo. The reckoning is coming, and I’m not sure you’re ready for it.”

“What,” John says. “No words of advice for the happy groom? I’m getting married. How about some _congratulations_?” He says the last part with acid, with resentment, and Winston’s eyes narrow.

“You need to start taking this seriously,” he says. “Viggo Tarasov is a man with a grudge the likes of which an apology won’t resolve. You killed his only son.”

“His son killed my dog. Winston-”

“It’s not a fair exchange in the eyes of _any_ law, Jonathan. And instead of sending people after you - which we all know would have resulted in a large and undignified dinner reservation – he’s decided to exercise a bit of intelligence. He’s gone to the High Table for justice.”

“I know,” John says impatiently. “Trust me, I _know_. That’s what we’re trying to avoid.”

“By conducting a sham wedding with…whom? Who on earth did you find to stand between you and the Table’s bullets, and with enough power that the guns might go unfired?”

“Me,” Santino says. The door swings noiselessly closed behind him; outside, John catches sight of Ares’ stiff shoulders and glare. Santino enters the room alone. “Winston. So good of you to join us.”

Winston’s expression is dangerously blank. “You can’t possibly be serious.”

“Does it matter, if it saves John’s life?” Santino asks. “Unless you have a better idea.” He stands at John’s side, hands in his pockets, handsome in deep blue and black. Nothing about him suggests that he’s come to attend his own wedding; he might as easily be here to meet an old friend, or order an execution. He stands like a man with few troubles and no concern for tomorrow. No one does confidence quite like Santino.

In another life, John remembers finding it reassuring. Now he’s not sure what he feels.

“I don’t know what else to do,” he says. “I’m out of options.”

“It’s not a complicated plan,” Santino says briskly. “I marry John, he becomes family. That makes him immune to the High Table’s vengeance, no matter the outcome of my father’s will. He spends a few years at my side, and when it is safe we separate, quietly. John can retire again, if he wants. Or stay in my service-”

“Not part of the deal,” John interrupts. It’s the first he’s heard of it.

Santino gives him a wry smile. It almost reaches his eyes. “The option is there. But, as you say, it is only an option. You are free to choose your own life, John. After the High Table stops trying to kill you.”

“You both seem remarkably certain that the High Table won’t take one look at this frankly outrageous act of deceit, and declare you both wanted men,” Winston says. “They have brains, you know. They’re perfectly capable of basic counting. How many days has it been since your wife died, John? How many hours since you buried her? And don’t try to tell me you don’t know; I know _you_. I’m sure you could tell me the answer right down to the minute.”

John feels his throat tighten. He turns away from Winston, from Santino, from the marble statue trapped mid-writhe and the candles that flicker like poorly imprinted memories. One of the mirrored walls catches his eye; he steps closer, watching his reflection shiver in its surface. It doesn’t look quite right. Nothing does. He supposes it’s only appropriate.

In the mirrored surface he sees Winston, as still as the statues, his face weighted with pity. And then, as he opens his mouth to say something, Santino’s reflection raises a hand; _I’ll fix this_. He’s the one who approaches. His reflection flickers over John’s shoulder, but the hand he rests on John’s back is real. Astoundingly gentle. But not uncharacteristically so; he’s always been a man of extremes, of surprises. As capable of tenderness as brutality.

“I know that this will not be easy,” Santino says. “You are in mourning. We have that in common. I buried my father two days before your wife; if Winston insists, I could count the hours for him. But it is not important. Right now, the only important thing is survival. We have all our lives ahead of us for sadness.”

“I wonder which you mourn more,” Winston says from across the room. “Your father, or the fact that you don’t yet know whether he preferred you or your sister? I know you, Signor D’Antonio. Not as well as I know John, but still I know you. And I knew your father. If you want to get through this alive, you’ll need to be a more convincing liar than that.”

John finds words. “He’s not the one in danger here.”

“He will be,” Winston says. “If you both go through with this lie, and they find you out. There are eleven filled seats at the High Table, and not a single one of them enjoys being played for a fool. And if the Camorra seat goes to Gianna, she won’t be able to step in. She’d need years before she had the kind of clout required to overrule the louder voices.”

“Is that true?” In the mirror, John meets Santino’s eyes. He feels the hand on his back; the thumb rubbing gently over one of his shoulder blades.

“I don’t know,” Santino tells him. “No one has tried this before. But I think it is to our advantage; they will not be expecting it. We make the rules. They can only respond.”

“But there’s a chance they’ll kill you too.”

Santino’s reflection shrugs. His hand stays on John’s back. “People try all the time. I’m still here.”

“This is different.”

“Then you will need to be…convincing,” Santino says, and finally John turns to look at him. At his arrogance, confidence, his absence of fear. He knows the risks. He just doesn’t care. “Make them believe you, and I will do the same. Make them turn Viggo away empty-handed, and then keep your head down until they forget. Until my family is powerful enough to make them forget.”

“Power you no doubt plan to attain through the deployment of Jonathan’s skills,” Winston says. “I assume you’ve made that clear to him. Exactly how many people will he need to kill for you to settle this debt?”

John is grateful for the interjection. For Winston’s steadfast, skeptical presence, for the knife he drags through the fog in John’s vision. Without him, it would be so easy to fall back into old habits; affection, trust, the incandescent warmth of Santino’s rare true smiles. John is out of practice in thinking in layers, in predicting the mazes his employers plot around him. Straight lines are about as much as he can handle at the moment. Winston is the voice he needs to guide him out into clarity.

“I’d like an answer to that,” he says. It’s the right thing to do; he knows it from the way Santino’s expression starts to close off, charm dispersed like dust from a bookshelf. “What exactly-”

“Is it done?”

The door swings open, Gianna storming in unannounced. She’s out of breath. “Is it finished?” she demands.

“Not quite, Signora,” Winston tells her stiffly. “This is not a matter anyone should rush.”

She looks at him as if he’s gone insane. “Yes, we _should_ rush. The High Table has sent word; an Investigator is coming. We are forbidden to act in any way that might hinder their work. This wedding needs to happen- it needed to happen five minutes ago. If we hurry, we can still pretend that we did not receive the message in time, but if not…”

_You’re so fucked_,_ John,_ she doesn’t say, but her expression says it for her. She’s as harried as he’s ever seen her, and Winston doesn’t look any happier. No one’s smiling at this wedding.

“John,” Santino says quietly, urgently. “If you want to give up and walk away, I can’t stop you. But then you will die, and Viggo will have won. Everything we put ourselves through on the night of your Impossible Task; everything you and I sacrificed, it will be gone. Is that really what you want? And your wife, your…Helen? Is that what she would want for you?”

The rest of the world gets very quiet around them. John stares at him. “I didn’t realise you knew her name.”

“I do,” Santino says. “Of course I do. She had what I could only ever dream of.”

It’s just one more among many indicators that this wedding is a terrible idea. Neither of them is ready. Neither of them is being honest. Between them, years of secrets and lies and omissions smothered by harsh breaths and bruises, saliva and sweat drying on unrepentant skin. They don’t _talk_. And the things they don’t say have already torn them apart once before.

John takes a breath. “Winston. I think we’re going to need the abridged version.”

“On your own head be it,” Winston says. He glances down at the book in front of him. “And don’t say I didn’t warn you. Very well. Dearly…’beloved’. We are gathered here to join John Wick and Santino D’Antonio in the once-holy union of marriage, which has become rather more profane in recent times, but I digress. This contract is not to be entered into lightly, but thoughtfully and seriously, and with a _deep_ realisation of its obligations and responsibilities.” He stops to look between John and Santino, eyebrows raised. “Because there are obligations, and responsibilities as well. As you will both come to understand.”

_Doubt it_, John doesn’t say. He’s startled to feel Santino’s fingers brush his, in a promise neither of them can hope to keep.

“I’m going to assume you didn’t come prepared with personalised vows,” Winston says acerbically. “Do at least try to ‘love, honour, cherish and protect, forsaking all others and holding only onto him forever more’, etcetera, etcetera. Santino, do you take John to be your husband?”

“I do.”

“Fine. John, do _you_ take Santino to be your husband?”

As if there’s a choice. “I do.”

Winston sighs. “In which case there’s really nothing left for me to say, other than suggesting you might like to swap rings and then sign the book to make it all official. If either of you was planning to try and kiss the other groom, I’d ask that you wait until I leave. I came here to witness a wedding. Not a bloodbath.”

The book is signed in ink a little too red for comfort, and even seeing his name on the page by Santino’s, John struggles to process the reality of what they’ve just done. It happened so quickly. An hour from now, he thinks he’ll struggle to remember how it was.

In the background, he’s aware of Winston muttering into a phone. Addressing the operator, asking for the wedding registration office and dictating a record of the wedding he’s just officiated. He gives his passcode. The marriage is registered. Its documentation will sit in a file one floor down from the assassination contracts, and one up from the treaties.

Santino hands John a ring, without hesitation or ceremony. It’s gold, heavy, inlaid deep with an etching John recognises as the D’Antonio crest. Santino has a matching one for himself; a family set, maybe, heirlooms passed down the generations. Probably priceless. John mutters a hollow thanks as he slips it onto his ring finger, and watches Santino do the same.

It’s done. Just like that, he’s married into the mob.

“Good,” Gianna says. John glances up at her, but if he was hoping for something along the lines of sympathy or support, he doesn’t find it. There’s nothing but calculation in her eyes. “And so we make our play. The High Table has the next move; I just hope we will be ready for it. Join me for dinner, both of you. Try to look happy.”

“Thank you for your attendance,” Santino says, heavy on the sarcasm. “I don’t know how you found time with your busy schedule.” But he’s talking to her back; she’s already stalking from the room, pulling a phone from a pocket in her coat. She doesn’t bother to wish them well. Maybe that’s for the best.

“And that’s the formalities finished with,” Winston says. He closes the book ungently, slamming the cover. “My insincere congratulations to the newlyweds; may they live long and happy lives, though I find the prospect unlikely in the extreme. Speaking of which.” He pulls a key card from his pocket and sets it down on the cover of the book. “You’ll be wanting the honeymoon suite, of course.”

“Of course.” Santino reaches out. Winston lays a couple of fingers on top of the card, holding it in place. They’re both too urbane to snarl at each other, but still the impression lingers; large beasts in too small a territory. One on home ground, one a brief invader. A possibility of violence, crushed under the weight of one flimsy rule: _no business in the Continental_.

John watches them wearily. He wishes Gianna had stayed, and understands why she didn’t; she owes him nothing, and their continued friendship relies on it staying that way. No favours. No regrets. No mess like the one he made with her brother.

“I don’t think you understand what happens next,” Winston says. “Either of you. The High Table will investigate Viggo’s claim with all their usual absence of tact. They will tear your lies apart. Question everyone you’re close to, and your enemies as well. And they _will_ come here seeking answers from myself and my staff; answers which we will give. I have no interest in jeopardising my position here, Jonathan. I will tell them the truth, to a point. Beyond that, you’re on your own.”

“Tell them that the wedding was real,” Santino says. “It is the truth. What else is there to say?”

Winston’s eyes narrow. “Only a warning, Signor D’Antonio. This room is one of the few spaces in the Continental where guests may linger unobserved. I fought for the right to keep it that way. The rest of the hotel is under constant surveillance. The dining rooms, the club, the library, the bedrooms; there are cameras everywhere. Safety reasons, you understand. We destroy the footage weekly. But it exists for that brief period, and it will exist when the High Table’s Investigator compels me to hand it over.”

Maybe it says a lot about John’s mindset that the first thing he thinks is, _that didn’t exactly help last time Perkins jumped me_. ‘Safety reasons’ is just another way of saying ‘Winston will exact vengeance for the sake of his own reputation, but you’d better survive an attack on your own’. It’s the flaw in his vaunted one rule. The loophole so many have noticed and exploited: prove your own strength, or don’t bother coming here. And you pay for your own damn dinner reservations.

It’s the look on Santino’s face that clues him in to what Winston’s really talking about; the smile, more wry than smug but still enough of the latter to give him away.

John tries not to feel too cornered. “That’s the least of our problems.”

“I beg to differ,” Winston says. “Your entire case depends on you being able to convince the Table that the two of you are madly in love. Note the emphasis on _mad_. And that is going to include the wedding night, a fact which is not filling me with confidence on your behalf. _He-_” he glances at Santino, eyes cold, “-can certainly fake it. You, on the other hand.”

“I am going to pretend that I did not hear you,” Santino says. He matches Winston for ice in his tone, the contempt plain. “For John’s sake. Because he likes you. As to the wedding night, it is not your concern.”

“Quite right,” Winston agrees. “And here I was, trying to be helpful. My mistake. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to contact the High Table and inform them that I failed to receive their urgent missive until after the wedding ceremony was performed, and that the two of you are now quite firmly bound in the unholy ties of matrimony. May god help us all. The room upstairs is yours if you’d like to have your things delivered, or take some time to calm yourselves…in full view of the cameras, of course.” He claps John on the shoulder as he passes; his expression is pitying. And then he too passes back out into the Continental’s quiet halls, the door closing firmly behind him.

John sinks down onto one of the pews. He stares at his hands; the ring looks wrong, thicker than his last, uncomfortably ornamented. The crest feels like a name on a dog collar.

Santino settles next to him, deceptively relaxed. “Hey,” he says. His shoulder nudges John’s.

John twitches. “Yeah, I know. Smile. Act like I want to be here.” It’s the wrong thing to say; Santino’s mouth tightens, and a better man would fill the sudden silence with an apology, a reassurance. John is not that man. He never was before, and now he’s even less so. The best parts of himself are either buried or burnt.

“I can’t do this alone,” Santino says eventually. His tone is pointed. It takes a moment, but memory resurfaces-

_John is five years younger, chained, growing desperate. Eleven at night on Santino’s New York doorstep, injured again, begging for his help though of late they’ve grown distant. I can’t do this alone. There’s no one else who would do this for me. No one I can trust to help._

“I appreciate what you’ve done for my sake,” John says quietly. “What you’re doing. The risks. But I can’t…make the last five years disappear. And I won’t pretend they didn’t matter. That I didn’t love Helen. Don’t ask me to do that.”

“Do I look like a monster to you?” Santino asks. “I know these things already. I helped you leave because I respected your right to a different life. It is not an opportunity I will ever have for myself, but you? You had the right. Your freedom had value.”

“You make it sound like that freedom’s over.”

“You killed eighty people.” Santino’s retort is not unkind. He’s being reasonable; it’s clearly something he’s gotten better at over the years. That, and keeping his temper in check. He leans his shoulder against John’s. “You’re _back_, John. Accept it. I will lie for you, but you have to tell me what I can say. Why are we here?”

_Because I had no choice_, John doesn’t say. _Because Viggo took his rage to a higher power than his own, and a swarm of locusts descended on my home. A fucking tank got parked on my lawn. My house burned to ashes. I’m here because you had the nerve to ask me if Helen would want me to give up, and because you were right. She wanted me to make it. That was the whole point of the dog._

“Okay,” he says, and feels Santino exhale slowly.

“_Finalmente_. Now he’s with me. The guy I need.”

_How many people will he need to kill for you to settle this debt?_ John pushes Winston’s warning aside. It’s not something he can afford to focus on.

“We tell them you and me had a thing, back in the day,” he says. “Before I retired. I worked for your dad, for you. We got…close.”

“So the truth.”

“Easier to keep the story straight.”

“Yeah,” Santino says. “That part doesn’t worry me. What about after?”

“Things turned serious.” John stares up at the statue. This is thin ice he’s treading on. Dangerous ground, rigged with landmines he only vaguely remembers setting, and others Santino left for him to find. Discussions they never had. Admissions they never made. Secrets he locked up with his guns and coins and hoped to never look at again.

They were close.

“After a while we weren’t just casual. But I was getting older, stacking up injuries. Running out of luck. I needed to get out before I got killed. You couldn’t protect me.”

Santino is nodding. “It was not a good time. Fighting the other clans, fighting to keep my family’s seat at the Table, when the Camorra was so splintered, and others asked why it should remain with us. I could not offer you freedom, or peace. I didn’t know the meaning of the words.”

“I met Helen and you…let me go.”

“Because I _loved_ you, of course” Santino says. He smiles; his eyes are distant. “But I never forgot. It would not have been right for me to attend your wife’s funeral, but I intended to visit you, perhaps a month or two from now. To give my condolences. And to see you again.”

“Until Iosef Tarasov decided to ruin some nobody’s life,” John says heavily. “You showed up in the aftermath to check on me. Soon as I saw you, it all came back.” He breathes out slowly. It’s not a bad lie, as lies go. Not something he’ll hate himself for saying. The parts that are true are not things he regrets; the rest is necessity. And still not altogether untrue. Of all the old faces to see on his doorstep, Santino’s is one of the few he welcomed, genuinely.

He doesn’t mention the marker. They seem to have arrived at some mutual, unspoken agreement; its existence is something that doesn’t matter, here and now. John wonders if it even applies. If it can be enforced between spouses. If Santino would be that cruel.

“It’s a good story,” Santino says. “They will not believe it, of course. Real life is not so simple, and certainly not in our world.”

“If you have a better idea-”

“No, I like it,” Santino says with a laugh. “It appeals to the romantic in me.”

“The same romantic who showed up to my house with a grenade launcher?” John asks. He can’t help himself. It’s not something he’s likely to forget.

“A sign of respect,” Santino tells him. “Also, it is new, and I am very attached. You know how it is.”

“You’ll have to introduce us properly. I’d like to meet the competition.”

It’s getting easier to fall into old habits. The old ways of addressing each other, the casual affection that always ignored the distance their world demanded between them. Santino was a terrible businessman; everything was personal, from the deaths he ordered to the way he treated his staff. All from the heart. None of Gianna’s subtlety, her careful distance. Santino was all or nothing.

Maybe he still is. Maybe he’s learnt better. It’s something John will have to find out. For the moment he lets himself be lulled by Santino’s confidence that this is something they can both survive. That he might someday get to go home.

He stands. “We should go. Be seen. Act…normal. Check Winston hasn’t left a bomb in the honeymoon suite.”

Santino stays where he is, smile wry. “You don’t linger in the moment, do you?”

“I didn’t realise we were having one,” John says. But he yields a little, just far enough to offer Santino a hand, pulling him to his feet. They stand close; there are new lines in the corners of Santino’s pale eyes. Shadows John doesn’t recognise.

It occurs to him that he may not know this man very well.

Santino glances down at the new ring on his finger. “Destiny is strange sometimes. I wonder what it has planned for us. But maybe I don’t want to know; the surprise is more enjoyable.”

“Speak for yourself,” John says. “I’m not a fan of surprises.”

“I know,” Santino tells him. “That’s why I always try to surprise you.” It should count as a warning on its own, but warnings tend to precede violence in John’s experience, and he finds himself tensing for a knife to the gut, unprepared for the kiss he gets instead.

It’s chaste, inasmuch as Santino is ever chaste about anything. His mouth is warm, lips pressed closed to John’s for less than the time it takes to draw a full breath and find a target down the sightline of a rifle. A token gesture; _you may now kiss the groom_. A precursor, or a test to see how John will respond when he does it again later. One hand on the lapel of John’s jacket, to push him away if he panics. Or just to touch him. A kiss between old lovers, old friends, new…something. Lingering a bit too long to pass it off as innocuous, and that’s both their faults. Five years slip away like the last of a dying sunset.

It’s far, far better than it should be. John steps away shaken, and only because Santino backs off first.

“See,” Santino murmurs. “You and I, we will be fine. We have nothing to be afraid of.”

He’s wrong, but John can’t find the words to tell him. He has a sense of premonition, a roiling in his gut, a strange and pleasant dread he tries to ignore. He can’t afford to want this. He can’t afford not to. The only clarity he has is the memory of Santino’s mouth against his own.

“Now we can go,” Santino says, taking John’s arm and leading him out into the Continental.


	5. A Struck Match Near Dry Tinder

Dinner is easy; the Continental is familiar ground, and the chef is always excellent. Gianna plays hostess, smiling and congratulatory, though when she squeezes John’s arm her nails dig deep enough to bite. The smile is bright; her eyes glitter, sharp and wary. Still, she coaxes conversation from the table.

Santino matches her light tone, her teasing; they speak English in deference to John’s rusty Italian, and anyone who doesn’t know them might be fooled into thinking they like each other.

It’s always been the case. Years of work for the old D’Antonio patriarch, and John can’t remember a single time he hasn’t felt compelled to stand between Gianna and Santino, a wall between two warring lions. He’s aware that the worst of it was always kept out of his sight; for whatever reason, they’re best behaved in front of him. Wary of looking immature to the outsider, maybe. Wanting to impress the legend. Or briefly calmed by the knowledge that he likes them both, in different ways, and refuses to pick a side.

That kind of friendship is unheard of in the world they inhabit. Maybe they keep themselves in check for the sake of preserving it.

John finds himself slipping almost unconsciously back into that role of resigned diplomat, surprised at how easily it sits with him. They catch him up on things he’s missed; interrupt and disagree, but they’re passably pleasant about it, and the sparring is almost comfortable. Familiar. The strings he tried to cut settle gently about his shoulders, winding around him like the stems of friendly roses. It’s easy to let them.

“So you finally tamed my wild brother,” Gianna says over dessert. “I…always wondered. There was a feeling.” She glances between them, and John realises she hasn’t been filled in on the story. That she’s aware her support will be required, but not certain how to apply it. He’ll have to find a way to tell her. She’ll be questioned. She doesn’t know the things she should.

Even before, she didn’t know. Maybe she didn’t want to; maybe Santino really was that good at hiding his more dangerous secrets from his family.

“Guess it was fate,” John says shortly. Under the table, Gianna kicks him for being unhelpful. That’s fair. He just doesn’t know what to say to her.

“‘Tamed’ is the wrong word,” Santino tells her. “Remember who it is that I married; I would not call either of us _tamed_. Perhaps we are now bending open the bars of our cages. You should be careful not to stand too close.”

Gianna shrugs. “But why would I stand anywhere, when I have a High Table seat waiting for me?”

“Maybe. If no one pulls it away from you. And if there is not someone else’s name on it.”

“There isn’t,” Gianna says. “The seat has always been mine. I hope you can accept that with grace, when the time comes.”

“Have you heard anything about the will?” John interrupts before the conversation turns nasty. It can happen so fast; he’s never been able to predict the ebb and flow of anger between these two. And that worries him.

“Nothing yet,” Gianna tells him. “They will keep us waiting longer, I think. Now that there is a new matter to investigate.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“It makes no difference,” Santino says. “They would have made us wait while they destroyed you as slowly as possible. A reminder of their power. Though perhaps I should thank them, for pushing me to do what I should have done a long time ago. This terrible chain of events has made me a very happy man.”

“Try telling that to Viggo,” John says dryly. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.” Both siblings laugh politely; he glances between them and knows they’ve taken it as a challenge, as an actual suggestion they’ll give serious consideration. He can’t keep up with them both. Not when he needs to keep his feet planted, to stand exactly half way in case they lunge for each other’s throats.

Gianna goes back to her panna cotta. Santino’s affogato has melted untouched, his spoon still clean. John didn’t bother ordering anything. Now he wishes he had something to do with his hands. Resting them on the arms of his chair, he tries to relax.

Cameras everywhere. He’s already found most of them, and doesn’t doubt the existence of recording devices somewhere under the table, under the chairs, or in the bookcase behind him. The threat is real, and worse for being totally nebulous. He can’t gun down the air. Can’t do anything but play a part he barely recognises; stand as a piece on a game board he doesn’t control, and trust that someone on his side knows the rules.

Santino reaches over and covers one of John’s hands with his own. John realises that he’s been digging his fingers into the arms of the chair. He makes himself relax. Santino twines their fingers together and John lets him, grateful to be touching something he needs to be gentle with.

“You’re still injured,” Santino says. He runs his thumb over one of John’s knuckles, grazed flesh still red and swollen. “Are you in pain?”

“It’s fine.”

“You will have time to heal,” Santino tells him. “When we are back in Napoli, in my family’s territory. You should not have to suffer like this; it is not right.” He holds John’s eyes, lifting the maimed hand to his mouth and kissing gently over the graze.

Gianna clatters her spoon pointedly against her plate. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she murmurs. “After all, we do not live quiet lives. Danger is always with us; we walk with death every day. John will have time to rest, as he should. But he has married into the Camorra. And I hope he will not stand by if you…or I are attacked.”

“Not now, Gianna,” Santino says. He doesn’t take his eyes off John’s. But Gianna’s meaning slips through anyway, and John thinks, _there’s the small print. _

He doesn’t ask for details. He’ll have to as soon as he can, but it’s not a discussion the High Table needs to hear. Not a discussion at all; the contract is already signed. The hellhound has a new collar.

“Not now,” Santino repeats, quieter this time. He sees something, then; some warning in John’s expression, flickering like a struck match near dry tinder. His tone suffocates the flame before it can take hold. “There will be time for family obligations in the coming days. Tonight…you belong to me.”

“Oh, please,” Gianna says. “It’s early. And I suggest we _do_ discuss what is to come over the next few days, before…distractions get in the way of common sense. Cassian tells me there’s a club downstairs. Let’s have a drink to celebrate.”

_You need to get out and be seen_, sits pointedly in her undertone. They’re not alone in the dining room, but the other occupants are busy with their own secrets, coded discussions, illicit friendships. Word hasn’t spread. It will. It needs to.

The club downstairs is quiet at this hour; it’ll liven up closer to midnight, but John suspects he won’t be lingering that long. The band is still warming up. At a table near the stage, Cassian sits with a gin and a book he’s only pretending to read. His eyes narrow as they enter. Technically, he’s off duty. It doesn’t seem to have sunk in.

His eyes find John, and his expression settles into nothingness. Blank. Utter professionalism. _As of now, I am treating you like a threat. _Gianna must have told him what’s happened.

They were friendly once. But those days are over.

The bar is deserted aside from Addy in her usual spot behind the counter, engaged in a silent, focused discussion with Ares. John averts his eyes from their hands; if they’re talking about the marriage, he’s not ready to know.

Addy catches sight of him and lights up. “Hey John,” she calls. “Welcome back! I wasn’t sure if you’d stop in to say goodbye before you left.”

He never even considered it. John feels a twinge of guilt. “Addy,” he says. “Sorry. I had a lot on my mind.”

“And if you stay for a drink, I’ll forgive you,” she says. She turns back to Ares, signing carefully, _coming right up_. Ares waves a dismissive hand. She gestures.

_Serve them first_.

“Anything you say,” Addy tells her with a wink. She turns to John, smiling; it widens as she catches sight of Santino behind him. “_Buonasera, _Santino_. _It’s been a little while, welcome back. Are you two having a reunion?”

“Something like that,” John tells her. She doesn’t seem to know about the wedding, and he doesn’t find himself inclined to tell her just yet. Either she’ll work it out soon enough, or she’ll hear about it overnight and give him hell for not warning her. “Things are a little complicated right now.”

“I heard,” she says. “The High Table’s involved? What did you do?”

“Killed someone who had it coming.”

“That doesn’t really narrow it down for me.” She moves while she talks, pouring top shelf bourbon into a tumbler and high end red wine into a glass, setting them onto the counter.

“It’s on my tab,” Santino tells her. “Thank you.”

“No problem at all. And you’re new here, right? What can I get for you, ma’am?” She addresses Gianna, who’s occupied with looking around the club like she’s never seen it before. Maybe she hasn’t. She’s never liked New York much, John remembers, and never been one for staying in Continentals. That’ll have to change when she gets the High Table seat. If she gets it.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Gianna says. “When I do, I’ll let you know.”

Santino grimaces. “I apologise in advance for my sister. And I take no responsibility for any trouble she gives you. Also, she is paying for her own drinks.”

“She’s no trouble,” Addy says. “And…hey. I hope this isn’t out of line, but I heard about your dad. I’m really sorry. Hope you’re both coping okay.” She means well. She always does, and never learns that her well-meaning isn’t always wanted. John winces at Gianna’s expression. At Santino’s forced smile. He takes his bourbon and steps away from the bar.

“Ah,” Santino says behind him. “Yes, thank you. But this is a happy occasion, so we would prefer not to discuss it.”

John lets him catch up, and then follows to a table near the stage, where the band is still going through warmups. He sits with his back to the stage; the performers don’t interest him, but the rest of the room does. Continental rule is a flimsy thing. He’s seen it broken before. And it’s better for all of them if he can keep an eye on the exits.

“You do know that we’re safe here,” Santino says. “Don’t you? I don’t think anyone could get a tank through the lobby.”

“It’s the High Table. I’m not taking chances.”

“Always so tense,” Santino says with a smile. “I can help with that. Later.” He has a hand on John’s wrist. Perfectly at ease; of course he is. They’ve been here before. The memories have faded like sun-bleached book covers, but they still exist. Late nights spent flirting in corner booths. More than one “drink with a friend” that ended up between the sheets in one of Santino’s New York residences. Or up against a wall. On the floor a couple of times, with the carpet leaving harsh red marks on his knees and the length of Santino’s back.

They’ve never actually stayed the night here together. But then, Santino and Winston aren’t friends. John’s never asked about that. Maybe he should.

Gianna joins them with a cocktail in horrifying colours. “I am celebrating,” she says in response to the look John gives her. “Perhaps champagne later? Weddings are such wonderful occasions.”

“That explains why you have had three of them,” Santino says pleasantly. “A shame your husbands keep dying.”

“A shame you almost turned forty before finding someone who can tolerate you for longer than fifteen minutes,” Gianna says, equally pleasant. She lifts her glass. “To the happy couple.”

“Thanks,” John mutters. He’s no more comforted by her fake enthusiasm than he is by Santino’s thumb stroking the inside of his wrist.

“And may this marriage be more fortunate than my own,” Gianna says. “But of course, you already know each other well; you understand each other. How long has it been?” _Can you please fucking tell me what the backstory is here_, she doesn’t say, but the implication is not subtle. _Do not ask me to make it up for you, because if I do we’re in trouble._

“A long time,” Santino says. “Soon after John first started working with our family; yes, I know. I have never possessed much self-control where he is concerned.”

“Or ever.”

“Gianna, please. It is my wedding day. Can you find it in yourself to be kind for an hour or two?”

“Am I not kind?” Gianna asks. Her smile is looking more forced by the second. “After all that I do for you; all that I _will_ do. Is that not kindness?”

She has a point; she’s going to lie through her teeth for them, and that may cause problems for her down the line. But John doesn’t doubt for a second that she wouldn’t be doing it if there wasn’t some kind of benefit in it for her. Maybe she’s hedging her bets; making sure Santino owes her a sizeable favour on the off-chance that he inherits the throne. Or making sure he knows what he owes her if she comes out victorious.

Or she weighed the risks up against the benefits of having John Wick on a family leash and decided she could stomach a lie or two. John remembers how she works. Favours and quiet threats, sweetness and unforeseen violence. Never by her own hand; she keeps plenty of people on payroll who do it for her.

And now she has him. The thought is a pit in his stomach.

He was done with this world. He was _done_.

“So quiet, John,” Gianna says. “But you always were. Half the time you would be in a room, and I would never notice. How do you put up with my brother? He talks so much.”

“One of us has to,” Santino says wryly. “And it is never John.”

“I don’t mind,” John says. “He attracts attention. No one notices me. It’s perfect.”

Gianna takes a large sip of her cocktail. “John, my god. Don’t you ever stop working? I’m not talking about how easy he makes your job; there’s so much more to life than that.”

“I know.”

He does. But there’s no possible way to explain to her that the work was always inextricable; that it _was_ his life, because there was no other way to live. That he found his way out of that for five gentle years, but there’s no way he can carry the peace back down to the underworld with him. They will need him to be the monster. The legend. Whether he likes it or not, he’s coming back.

But it was never just about the work. He talks when he needs to. Santino fills in the spaces. The balance is a comfortable one. He remembers.

_It’s the morning after a successful night in Naples and John is cleaning his equipment. Guns disassembled on a towel, sitting cross-legged on the ground as he checks his knives for dried blood. The morning after is always hard. He tends to crash; the adrenaline and fury and focus wear off, leaving him hollow, a little depressed. Wavering directionless. Santino’s realised it. He comes by and stays, talks, about life, family, work. He has a calming voice; deep, pleasant no matter the language he speaks. He’s a point of focus in the emptiness. An anchor for a man adrift. When he goes to leave, he rests a hand just briefly on the back of John’s neck, and the warmth of his palm drives away the last of the clouds._

It’s been a long time since he’s lingered in one of those memories. John finds himself watching Santino, looking for the man he remembers. Finding him, in the curious look Santino gives him, questioning but indulgent. His patience with John’s silences is limited sometimes. Other times, it seems endless.

“Lost in memories?” Santino asks.

“Yeah. Just…thinking about those times after a job. The next day. You always stopped by to check up on me.”

“I remember. You were so grim; someone had to cheer you up.”

“I liked it,” John says. “The distraction was…good. I liked your voice. It was nice to have someone near me who could be so alive.”

Gianna tilts her head. “I think I saw it once. You were doing something with your guns while my brother talked to you about art, of all things. Forging a line of old masters to sell in China. Such a boring topic, I couldn’t understand why you didn’t shut him up.”

“I was fascinated,” John tells her. Tells them both; he remembers so clearly, and the memory comes without the bleak and poisonous shadows that blur so many of the older recollections. No fear, no rage, no hatred. There were good days. Far more with the D’Antonio family than with the Tarasovs; they were kind to him, in their own ways. “It wasn’t a part of the business I ever saw. And your brother’s easy to listen to.”

“You have to say that,” Gianna says. “You’re married to him.” Still, she smiles, satisfied. She has something to work with; knowing her, she’ll take that and spin it into her own stories. The times she saw them together, the times she kept her mouth shut, the things she pretended not to see. She’ll lie until John himself starts wondering if there are things he’s just forgotten.

At his side, Santino put his empty wine glass down. On a whim, John turns his hand over, palm up, setting it on the table between them. Santino takes the hint, entwining their fingers. They glance at each other. The look lingers.

“I’m getting another drink,” Gianna says abruptly. “Behave yourselves.” She stands, leaving them alone.

“For all her faults, my sister can take a hint,” Santino says. He turns slightly, his knee brushing John’s under the table. There’s something heavy in his eyes; a warmth, an invitation. John thinks about a hand on the back of his neck.

This time, he leans in first. The kiss is impulsive; whimsical, exploratory. Santino lets him take the lead, tilting his head to meet the repeated brush of John’s mouth. He parts his lips in invitation; _take this wherever you want. It’s yours_. But there’s no hurry, and John is patient. He keeps the kisses tame, lingering on the edge of Santino’s mouth, his lower lip.

It’s unbelievably good to kiss someone again. The warmth, the connection. He feels the effort it costs Santino to restrain himself from pushing, and appreciates it.

“This would be a good moment to leave,” Santino says. He’s not out of breath, but his cheeks are slightly flushed. He brings a hand to the crook of John’s neck and rests it there. “Why wait any longer? Five years is long enough. I want you, John. So much.”

The intensity of it sends a shock through John’s body. He feels it too, this wanting, this moment between them. Real or not, he feels it. When he speaks, he hears it in the roughness of his voice.

“Yeah. I’m not sure I can sit through another argument with your sister.”

“That makes two of us,” Santino says.

They leave by one of the side exits, tucked discreetly behind heavy red curtains. At some point Santino takes John’s hand. They don’t let go.

The Continental’s honeymoon suite is as extravagant as the rest of it; the sheer number of candles all over the place would be enough to satisfy even Gianna. There were rose petals scattered across the bed when they stopped by after the wedding earlier. John is relieved to find they haven’t been replaced from the floor where he tossed them. He thinks they might have been Winston’s idea of a joke.

The cameras are watching. His hands are steady, but he feels utterly destabilised.

“So,” he says.

Santino throws him an amused look from where he’s hanging his jacket up in the wardrobe. “So?”

_How the hell are we going to do this? _John wants to ask. Some of it must translate; Santino takes pity, crossing the room to stand in front of him.

“Nerves?” he asks, eyebrows raised. His hands are busy; he removes his tie, draping it over the back of a nearby chair and briskly setting to work on John’s. “How unlike you. Since when is the Boogeyman nervous about anything?”

“Santino, it’s been _five years_.”

“And how often I have thought of you since then,” Santino says, low and intimate. Fake, but maybe less so on the camera footage, to someone who hasn’t spent years memorising the minute shifts in his moods.

“I…” _thought of you too_, is on the tip of John’s tongue. He can’t say it. It’s not untrue, but not in the sense Santino means it. He never lingered in the memories. Brief flashes brought on by unexpected sights and smells, a jolting memory of pale eyes, pushed aside immediately.

_I didn’t think about you_. _Not intentionally_. It’s not something Santino will appreciate hearing, if John knows him at all. But it’s true, and the thought lingers the whole time they work on each other’s clothes, shirts unbuttoned and set aside, shoes kicked off, belts and pants tossed aside. _I left you behind and I don’t know why I’m here._

He feels himself detaching from the moment. Slipping into a protective haze, not quite within himself. The movements are easy; walking Santino backwards to the bed, swapping kisses that grow increasingly untidy. They’re both half-hard by the time they sprawl on the sheets, and it’s…

Mechanical. It happens. John feels none of it. He thinks Santino can tell; there’s a furrow of confusion on his face, though he hides it in bites to John’s collarbone. His hands stroke John’s back. That, at least, conjures memories. Santino’s always been fascinated by the tattoos. The meanings, the bruise-like ink stains on John’s skin. _Ugly, but compelling_.

John settles in between Santino’s parted thighs. He inhales shakily. It’s not that he can’t handle this; Santino is as beautiful as he ever was, his hands as skilled, and no one kisses quite like him. Fucking him is not something John will struggle with.

Meaning it, though. It’s so much to ask. He doesn’t know why he’s doing this. He’s not himself. Dazed. Distant. Going through the motions.

Condoms and lube have been very helpfully left in the bedside drawer. John strips open a foil packet, rolls it on, reaches for the lubricant.

The haze is so heavy. He’s barely present at all; his head is somewhere else completely. Back in a home that no longer exists, between walls he genuinely believed were safe, in a life he thought he might actually get to keep.

“Don’t worry about it,” Santino murmurs as John moves to slip a couple of fingers into him. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Sure.”

“Just let me-” Santino grabs John’s hip to flip them over or throw a leg over his thigh. But they’re not in sync in the slightest.

His knee comes into direct contact with John’s injured ribs.

John whites out briefly; he thinks might scream, though the pain is so bright it erases several seconds of memory, leaving afterimages blotting out details in its wake. He comes to awareness on his back. Hands clasped over his bandaged side, the agony near unbearable. It’s worse than it has been since he was first sliced open. His breathing takes on a ragged, shallow edge. The only thing he can focus on is protecting his side. It’s all he has.

Alertness returns as the seconds pass. He becomes aware of Santino hovering over him, cursing under his breath.

“John. John, are you alright? _Fuck_, John, I forgot, _mi dispiace-_”

“It’s fine,” John says through gritted teeth. “Just…give me a minute.”

“I am so sorry,” Santino says. “Do you need me to call for the doctor?”

“Not sure. Am I bleeding through?”

“No,” Santino says with open relief. “The stitches hold. But I should have been more careful.”

“Yeah.” John blinks up at the ceiling. He deepens his breathing slowly, testing how it pulls at his side, relaxing when it doesn’t make things worse. He’s coming back to himself. The haze is well and truly gone; now he’s in the present, in pain and awake. His other injuries seem somehow nearer. The bruises, the scrapes on his knuckles and kneecaps, the overwrought muscles and the sleep he hasn’t had enough of. He feels every year of his age. Remembers why he quit in the first place.

“John,” Santino says. He’s close, coiled and tense, but he strokes John’s shoulder with care. Runs a hand up the back of his neck, digging his fingers into John’s skull. Kneading gently, soothingly. “How bad is it? The pain?”

“Temporary. Couple of minutes, I’ll be fine.”

“Of course.” Santino leans in to kiss the corner of John’s jaw. He angles his head to keep his mouth obscured, murmuring into John’s skin. “Take whatever time you need. Five minutes, ten, I don’t care. But after that we _will_ be getting back to what we were doing. This is happening, John. Even if you have to grit your teeth the whole way.” His hands are terribly gentle; his tone is not.

John starts to laugh. He can’t help himself, though it hurts.

“There you are,” he says raggedly. “_There’s_ the real you.”

_Soulless bastard,_ he doesn’t say, but it comes with a shocking upswell of warmth, of bitter-tinged nostalgia. Santino always kept him on his toes. Always offered the most creative jobs, the kills so specific they could only be motivated by spite.

He’s a vicious man. Volatile. Touchy. And for all of that, or maybe because of it, one of John’s favourite people.

“I’m going to need you to do most of the work,” John says. “Unless you want to get blood everywhere.”

“Not tonight, _mio caro_. Some things should be saved for the honeymoon.” They laugh over it together, a little too sharp, not quite enough humour. It’s not as much of a joke as it should be, and John has the phantom taste of copper on his tongue. He wonders if he’s looking forward to it. Wonders if he should be.

John pushes himself upright, leaning his weight back into the pillows. He keeps a hand cupped protectively over his ribs, but the other is free to stroke the bare thigh Santino slings over his lap. He burns hot; he always does, in body and in temper, and it’s such a pleasure to kiss him again. To relax against his skilled assault, the curl of his tongue between John’s lips, the slick sounds their mouths make. Unrestrained. Free of guilt. Santino never carries regrets into bed with him, and it’s so easy to follow his lead.

His cock is heavy against Santino’s inner thigh, lubricant smearing, but it almost feels like an afterthought. The kissing, the messy, heavy intimacy, the eagerness with which they touch each other; that’s what keeps John focused. He’s happy to let Santino take the lead. Always has been. John strokes his back, his chest, rubs a thumb over a nipple and then across his ribs. Strokes his cock a couple of times, until Santino shivers and pushes his hand off.

“Wait,” he says.

“Sure.”

Santino is silent as he settles himself around the tip of John’s cock, taking just the head and no more. Slow about it, and there’s something exquisite to feeling him give way, to slipping just barely into him. Such control. John finds himself holding his breath.

Santino’s thighs barely tremble. He breathes shakily against John’s mouth. Their noses brush; it would look tender, to anyone who’s never met them. Who doesn’t know what they are. What they do to each other.

“What,” John says. “Too much already?” Santino meets his sardonic tone with a bite to his lower lip. A pointed tightening of muscles, and now John is the one breathing shakily.

“Maybe,” Santino murmurs. “Or maybe I just missed your cock.”

“You had five years to find an upgrade.”

“There is only ever one John Wick.”

Santino moves slowly, one hand on the headboard, one on John’s knee. He’s unbearably restrained; John leans his head back and watches the tip of him slide wetly into Santino’s body. They’re barely connected. But the anticipation dries John’s mouth. His skin prickles. He finds himself twitching in time with every bare movement of Santino’s hips, his breath catching with the tip of his cock. Every nerve on fire, every sense sharpened down to the single point of focus.

“You’re driving me crazy,” he mutters. Santino’s laugh is breathless.

“Yeah,” he says. “I like making you wait for me. Too often it is the other way around.”

John curses under his breath. The heat, the tightness around the tip of his cock, raises goose bumps all over his skin. He feels set alight. Oversensitive, everywhere. It never once occurs to him to try and speed things up; he can’t remember the last time he was this desperate for it, but his hands stay gentle on Santino’s thighs. He’ll move when he’s told to. Until then, he suffers.

Santino leans forward, lips parted, and John stretches to meet him. It barely counts as a kiss, what they do; more tongues than lips, open mouths, saliva smearing, and Santino picks that moment to slip a little farther down John’s cock. He moans with it, theatrical as ever. John makes no sound. He can only hold his breath to the point of dizziness and take what Santino wants to give him.

He will not move. He will not give Santino the satisfaction.

“So much control, John,” Santino says. The muscles of his thighs are tight with strain; John strokes his hands over them, a wordless plea. “I always liked that about you. What is the Russians say? _Sheer fucking will_? Yeah. I like that too.”

John laughs unsteadily. “I think you might be pushing that too far.”

“But I haven’t pushed,” Santino protests, mock offended. “I could not possibly be more careful with you.” He presses hard on John’s knee, using the support to lift himself almost entirely off John’s aching cock. His inner thighs are translucent with excess lube. Captivated, John drags a couple of fingers through the slick, lifting them to trace the tip of his cock where it just barely breaches. He strokes Santino’s edges, teasing. Glancing up, he finds Santino’s head bowed, eyes closed.

“Do it,” he breathes. Obedient, John presses, gently and then harder, until one fingertip slides in next to his cock, trapped and overheated. He flexes his finger. The noise Santino makes is unbelievable.

“Think you can take two?” John asks. It’s a game now; he’s hurting, and it’s only fair to share that around. They both like challenges.

“Fuck you,” Santino says. “No. Do it anyway.” He leans his forehead against John’s, his breathing shallow as John presses hard with a second finger, slick with excess lube. He can feel the strain, muscles stretched to the point of agony. But he’s not told to stop, and his finger slides in next to the first. Santino chokes something incoherent. He’s still hard, his cock heavy against John’s stomach. John flexes his fingers, coiling them to press inwards, taking a little vicious pleasure in the pained edge to Santino’s breathing.

“I could do three,” John offers. The look Santino gives him promises murder if he so much as tries.

“Counter offer,” Santino says. “Take them out and I’ll ride you until you come.”

“That’s more like it.”

“You can’t blame me for seeing how far I could push.”

“I guess not,” John says. He withdraws his fingers slowly, stroking them down Santino’s inner walls, making sure he really feels it. “Can’t blame me for returning the favour.”

“Watch me,” Santino retorts. He drops his hand from the headboard to John’s shoulder, grabbing him rough around the back of the neck, forcing a messy kiss. Sliding down the length of John’s cock as he does, until he’s fully seated in John’s lap, swallowing John’s helpless groan.

It’s the end of the game, or maybe Santino’s learnt a lesson about trying his luck. He’s not messing around anymore. Moves fast, rough, taking John to the hilt with the barest sound of effort, pulling back to allow for shallow thrusts that have them both panting. John takes his cock in one hand, stroking ungently. He teases the tip with his thumb, with the circle of his fingers; a small revenge for earlier. Santino’s grin suggests that he knows exactly what’s going on.

“Cruel, John,” he says, breathless. He’s flushed, dripping sweat; they both are. John tightens his grip around Santino’s cock.

“Yeah,” he says. “Thought that was how you liked it.”

“Oh, so you do remember.”

“Like I’d ever forget you.” John puts some real effort into jerking him off, his hand sliding rough down the length of Santino’s cock, the ache in his wrist nowhere near serious enough to distract. Drops of colourless slick smear his fingers every time he moves over the tip. He watches Santino steady himself, digging his fingers into John’s knee. Tilting his hips and changing the angle John’s cock slides into him; it’s shallower, tighter, fast enough that John swears he’s seeing stars. He finds the strength somewhere to buck upwards clumsily, pushing just a little deeper.

Santino throws his head back, his hair falling into his closed eyes.

“Tell me you’re close,” he gasps. “Because I am. God, John, I am so close.”

“Yeah. _Fuck_, just- keep doing that.”

“Anything for you,” Santino says. He laughs through it, monster that he is. Laughs until his voice breaks, and he’s coming over John’s hand and chest in uneven spurts, his thighs quivering. He tightens reflexively around John’s cock. It’s just enough, and too much. John comes harder than he has in recent memory. He moans with it, burying himself deep in Santino’s heat, smothered by the weight of him.

They lean on each other, sweat-soaked, gasping for breath. Santino strokes John’s hair with a hand that trembles. They’re both shaking. It’ll be a while before they’re collected enough to move apart.

Until then, they hold each other.


	6. From Exoneration to Execution

The black Continental phone rings at too early an hour; John rolls over with a groan, his ribs expressing sharp disapproval. He grabs the mouthpiece from its cradle, almost dropping it. Next to him, Santino makes an irritated sound.

“Good morning,” says Charon. “I am sorry for disturbing you.”

“Not as sorry as I am,” John says, dragging a hand over his face. The digital clock on the bedside shines unbearably bright. It’s just gone seven. “I’m guessing there’s an emergency.”

“Yes, sir. The High Table’s Investigator has arrived.”

“Already?” Blankets rustle at his side. John lifts an arm, wrapping it around Santino’s shoulders. Pulling him in. Santino rests his head on John’s shoulder. He’s close enough to hear most of the conversation; his pale eyes are far more alert than John’s feel.

“Viggo Tarasov is also here. He demands an audience with you immediately.”

“His enthusiasm is admirable,” Santino says, leaning in to make himself heard. “Really. But we will not be able to comply; newlyweds, you know how it is. He will be lucky to see us before noon. I have other plans for my husband this morning.”

On the other end of the line, Charon stifles a sound John would call a laugh from anyone else. “I did warn them that would be the case. I will pass on the message.”

“With our sincerest regrets.”

“Of course,” Charon says. “And should you be wanting room service at any time, do feel free to contact reception. Breakfast is complimentary, with our congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“Thanks,” John echoes, then drops the phone back into its cradle. He feels heavy with broken, inadequate sleep. But not as empty as he’s been growing accustomed to; he likes the weight of Santino’s head on his shoulder, the other man’s hand resting idly on his chest. Over his heart. He’s started forgetting how it feels to lie back and hold someone. Forgotten how often they did this, back in the day.

_Santino has always fucked like a demon with no sense of pain, no limits and no shame. He takes bruises, beatings, John’s fingers digging into the frail bones of his neck, choking the arrogance out of him. He likes it rough and unprepared and barely civilised, and afterwards he likes to be held. Maybe it helps him feel less used. Maybe he needs it to convince himself he’s more than Giuseppe D’Antonio’s castoff child._

John drags a hand through Santino’s hair, careful not to pull on any knots. He promised he would. He knows Santino likes it.

“Go back to sleep,” Santino tells him, brushing John’s hand away. “We attend this meeting when we are ready, and not before.”

“You want to piss off the High Table?”

“They’re already pissed off,” Santino says. “And I am too tired to care. If you wake in an hour, call for coffee. Or I will if you are sleeping.” He drops his head back down onto John’s shoulder.

John stares up at the blank white ceiling. He counts seconds, minutes; counts how long it takes for Santino’s breathing to deepen as consciousness slips away. He’s never understood how it can be so easy for anyone to willingly fall asleep next to him. Santino more than anyone, when Santino has seen the things John does. Has seen past the thin veneer, the expensive suits and ties and tacked-on civilisation, like fresh wallpaper slathered over rotting boards. Santino knows what he is. Santino _knows_. And still he’ll sleep with John’s arm around him. With the Boogeyman’s hands so near his throat.

John closes his eyes.

When he opens them, the smell of espresso is heady and close, tempting enough for John to drag himself free of the last clinging threads of sleep and into proper wakefulness. He sits up, muscles twinging, and accepts the coffee cup that is handed to him. It’s black, strong and undiluted.

“A better start to the day this time,” Santino says. “I appreciate the speed of the room service here. If I call for caffè in Gianna’s house, it is cold by the time it arrives. Her staff could learn some things.”

“Or you could make your own coffee.”

Santino gives him a very warm smile. “But then who will run the Camorra?”

They’re close enough that neither of them has to lean far; John lowers his cup and meets Santino’s mouth with his own. Black coffee on their lips, the laziness of early morning in the slow brush of their tongues. None of last night’s demand or frenzy; they’ve spent their desperation for now. This is pure indulgence. Familiarity. Long-buried memories uncovered in the scrape of stubble against John’s cheeks, Santino’s fingers on his jaw, guiding him where he’s wanted.

“Finish your espresso,” Santino murmurs against his lips. “Then join me in the shower, hm?” He pulls back to meet John’s eyes, waiting for agreement. John gives it to him in another lingering press of lips, a flick of tongue. He’s deep in the moment, the memories. There’s no convincing necessary.

“Yeah. Just give me a minute.”

“No hurry.”

The coffee almost scalds his tongue, but John swallows it anyway. He’d like to think that next time he’ll linger. When he’s not quite as mesmerised by watching Santino crossing the room, naked and unabashed. A couple more lines around his eyes, a couple more scars on his skin. And still handsome enough that it would be a shame not to admire him.

John abandons what’s left of the coffee. Wraps up the bandages over his ribs with plastic and steady hands, but even he’ll admit he rushes it. He goes to join Santino.

The water is warmer than John likes it; he lets it run down his back, blinking drops from his eyes and pushing his sodden hair out of the way. And then Santino is in his space, a thigh between John’s, their chests pressed together. They kiss with the water dripping down noses and cheekbones. Deep and endless, swallowing water, until they’re forced to pause for breath or drown against each other.

Santino leans his cheek on John’s shoulder. Reflexively, John cradles the back of his head. Santino’s arms are loose around his waist, relaxed and undemanding. The intimacy feels so simple.

If they could just stay like this. If time would freeze, if they could step outside the horrors no doubt waiting, and the ones they’ve already survived. If they could just be as they are now, and forget all the reasons it was never going to last, and never will. If only.

John presses his lips to Santino’s forehead in a plea he can’t verbalise. Santino allows it. Tilts his head to kiss below John’s ear.

“Gianna sent a note with the coffee,” he breathes. He’s only just audible under the sound of the water. “The High Table knows what we did. They’ve dropped the case against you; they have no choice.”

“Good.”

“Viggo has lodged another claim. He says the marriage is fake. Fraud, to avoid facing the High Table’s justice.”

“It is.” John strokes the back of Santino’s neck. The tenderness is an act, and he’s being indulged. Still, he feels calmed by the motion.

“They can’t prove that,” Santino murmurs. “Gianna will lie. She should not struggle; it comes naturally to her. She can tell them we have a history, and they will have no choice but to believe her. It is a shame Cassian came to us too late, but Ares saw enough. More than enough.”

“It won’t work,” John says. “Your sister, your bodyguard. Not convincing witnesses.”

“A shame we were so discreet,” Santino says, and John laughs, brief but genuine. He remembers. Sneaking out of bedrooms before dawn, climbing down from balconies and dusting himself off from quickies in ridiculous locations. He’s not sure where he found the energy. But he remembers that a part of him loved the theatre of it all. The challenge. And the rewards.

“Shame I was just that good at my job,” he says. This time, Santino is the one laughing.

“You were,” he admits. “I remember. You were always magnificent, John. You still are.”

His mouth is warmer than the water; he licks droplets from John’s neck, his thigh a solid pressure between John’s legs. They’re both already hard, rutting idly up against each other. No hurry, no sense of urgency. Newlyweds with nowhere to be; they play it up, hands stroking spines, kissing each other’s shoulders. John drags his fingers across the shorter hairs on Santino’s scalp. Groans low as Santino sucks a hard kiss into his neck. It stings like a slap, and his teeth dig in as he lets go. That’ll bruise fast. Bruise visible. It’s too high for a collar to hide.

“I could never do that before,” Santino says. He presses his lips to the damaged skin, deceptively gentle. His grin is sharp. “How many times I wanted to. You have no idea.”

“I can guess.”

“Or I can show you.” Santino nips at John’s neck again, a little higher. He’s planning on leaving his marks, then. His sigil in gold around John’s finger, in bruises on John’s neck. His teeth dig deeper and John reaches between them, wrapping a hand around Santino’s cock. They’re both soaked through, the water dripping between his fingers as he tightens his grip. Santino’s lips part against his neck in a silent gasp.

“I always liked your hands,” he breathes, and John makes a sound of disbelief.

His hands are scarred, calloused and worn, knuckles constantly scraped open. Knife scars, old breaks, a violent cartography charting decades of death. A couple of days ago he snapped an old acquaintance’s neck, the bones cracking loose between his palms, choking his last against John’s unbroken lifelines. Now he wraps one of those same palms around the tip of Santino’s cock, squeezing gently.

Santino sucks hard kisses into John’s neck, growing careless as John finds a rhythm in the movements of his hand, slick and fast around Santino’s cock. His own presses between them, ignored; he’s aching a bit, but it’s fine, it’s almost pleasant in comparison. He can wait. Drag it out for the pleasure of feeling Santino grow increasingly pliant, his breathing shallow as he twitches reflexively, fucking into John’s hand.

And then his teeth dig deep enough that John flinches and lets go. “_Fuck. _Would you stop that?”

“Not yet,” Santino tells him. He pants against John’s shoulder; his pale eyes are alight. “Soon, but not yet.”

“What, you want a written request?”

“No. But I do want you to come down my throat.”

He laughs into John’s disbelief, his surprise; he’s always taken too much pleasure in being the most unpredictable presence in John’s life. He sinks to the wet tiles with far more grace than should be possible. John’s knees bracket his shoulders, but Santino leaves neither of them in any doubt as to who makes the rules here.

John braces a hand against the shower wall as Santino’s lips brush the tip of his cock in a mocking kiss. He drops the other into Santino’s sodden hair. He’ll need it to steady himself; he remembers this. It’s not something he’s ever grown accustomed to. Instinct has him holding his breath as Santino mouths at his cock and then swallows him down without warning. It doesn’t help. He loses the air in a silent groan, head dropping, his cock already brushing the back of Santino’s throat.

Gag reflex doesn’t seem to be a concept this man is familiar with. His expression says that he knows exactly what that does to John.

The hot water runs down John’s shoulders, dripping from his hair onto Santino’s shoulders; he braces hard against the wall and bucks into Santino’s mouth. It earns him a moan, the rumble unbearable. It’s as close to invitation as John is getting. He grabs a handful of Santino’s hair and starts fucking his throat. No caution. No subtlety.

If there’s one thing they’ve always agreed on, it’s this; mercy is a concept that doesn’t belong in their bed. John yanks hard at Santino’s hair. Drops his hand to the other man’s throat and digs his fingers into the underside of Santino’s jaw. He can feel the reckless, rhythmic movement of his cock. He presses his fingers hard against it.

Santino struggles for breath, until the water dripping down his face and the length of John’s cock make it impossible, and then he chokes, his hands digging yet more bruises into John’s thighs. He’s still hard, painfully so. Still impossibly handsome, revelling in his own vulnerability.

He closes his eyes as John loses focus, moving erratically. Lips curved smug around John’s cock, swallowing reflexively until the tightness of his throat, the pressure of his tongue push John over the edge.

John pulls back to let him breathe. He strokes Santino’s hair; his hands shake as badly as his thighs, lingering twitches he can’t quite stop.

“You’re still good at that,” he says as sensation returns to his nerve endings. “I almost forgot.”

“_I_ remember you used to last longer,” Santino retorts lazily, voice slightly raw. He stands without help. His lips are swollen when John kisses them, his saliva still just a little salty. He rubs up against John’s thigh.

It’s tempting to leave him wanting. Back in the day, John might have done it. They played those games with each other; bruises and blood, denial and anticipation, little power plays in the bedrooms of old Italian villas and five star hotels.

But they’re married. They have an image to present for the Continental cameras. John presses a gentle kiss to Santino’s bruised mouth and says, “bed. Now…darling.” Santino’s gleeful laugh is far more pleasant than it has any right to be. Better yet; he does what he’s told.

Stretched out on the covers, still flushed and dripping, Santino parts his thighs for John to settle between. He drags an ankle up John’s back. Stretches easily, the muscles of his abdomen moving with the rhythm of John’s head. And John’s never been quite as natural about this as Santino, but he hasn’t forgotten the addictive weight of a cock between his lips, the way of relaxing his throat and teasing with his tongue.

There’s no lube in reach, but he remembers Santino better by the second. No warnings, no warmup; he drops a hand behind Santino’s balls, rubbing at him briefly before pushing two fingers in dry.

Santino makes a cracked, appreciative sound. The heel of his foot presses hard into John’s upper back. Knuckle deep inside him, John abandons what little attempt he was making at subtlety. Curves his fingers the way he knows; memory guides him, and apparently some things you never forget. Triggers on guns, triggers in people. He finds Santino’s and plays it merciless, sucking hard on the tip of his cock.

There’s no small amount of pleasure in knowing he can make Santino finish faster than he did. They’re both competitive at times. But only one of them can’t choke down a howl as he comes.

It’s a damp aftermath; the bedcovers are sodden, and neither of them cares to fetch a towel. They lie entangled. All the aches of the previous days are starting to return, held briefly at bay by adrenaline and sex, now clawing their way back into John’s consciousness. The stitches in his ribs seem to be intact. The rest of him feels held together by weaker threads. He’s getting too old for the kind of stunt he pulled with Viggo’s people, and now he’s paying for it.

“Any chance we can ask this Investigator to come back in a couple of weeks?” he mutters into a pillow. One of Santino’s arms is trapped under his chest, his hand curved around John’s bicep, idly stroking a tattoo. “Think you might have broken me.”

“Already?” Santino asks. “I was gentle.”

“Jesus.”

“No. Just me. But when you are healed, and we are back in my home, on my territory…then I will make you believe you have seen god.”

John laughs his disbelief into the pillow. He’s buzzed, warmed by the orgasm and the memories, briefly existing in borrowed moments from another time. A life he tried to leave. A future he rejected in favour of another.

He doesn’t believe Santino would have married him if he’d stayed. Not for lack of desire, but the timing was disastrous, and the option wasn’t there. Chaotic years, John worn thin with constant work, the blood never quite washed from the pores of his skin before he replenished it, and not one week went by without an attempt on Santino’s life, or Gianna’s, or their father’s. The war ground them down into shards of glass; they couldn’t come together without cutting each other, and it wasn’t making either of them happy. Santino didn’t hold his contract. John was losing sleep to nightmares, in pain every second of his life. Wounds didn’t have time to heal. Humanity seemed a distant concept; he was heading for self-destruction.

The worst thing he could possibly have done was drag Santino down with him.

_How did you do it?_ he wants to ask. _How’d you survive all that and come out on top? _He’ll ask at some point in the future, when they shake off the High Table’s hounds and Viggo’s anger, and retreat to home ground. When he catches Santino in a whimsical mood. It’s probably a good story. John genuinely wants to hear it.

There’s a discreet tap on the door to their room. John sighs.

“Any chance you want to get that?”

“No,” Santino says. “It’s your turn.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

John drags himself upright, detouring briefly to the bathroom for a towel to wrap around his waist. He drips water the whole way to the door. Housekeeping is going to hate him, but Santino’s paying the tab. And a few more people hating Santino won’t make any difference at all.

“Hey,” John says, opening the door to Charon’s carefully schooled neutrality. And then, as movement catches his eye, “_hey_.”

The dog darts for his legs, only somewhat hindered by the leash. It paws at John’s knee, whining until he reaches down to ruffle its ears. Its tail wags. For some unknown reason, it’s actually happy to see him.

“It missed you,” Charon says. “Although it was very well behaved. I thought perhaps a reunion might be in order.”

“Thank you. Yeah, okay, good dog. _Good_ dog.” Charon unclips the leash before the dog can tangle John up in its enthusiasm. He bends to pat its back, wincing as the movement stings his plastic-wrapped ribs. “What’s the situation downstairs? Is Winston keeping everyone calm?”

“He is doing his best. However, if I may make a suggestion, it might be advisable not to drag things out too long. The Investigator does not seem inclined towards patience. And Mister Tarasov is very angry.”

“No surprises there.” John steps aside to let the dog dart past him into the room; behind him, he hears Santino make a startled sound, and then laugh.

“Good luck, Mister Wick,” Charon tells him seriously. “If there is anything you require, please don’t hesitate to ask. The Continental has always appreciated your patronage. And I would be glad to assist in any way I can.” The gold rims of his glasses catch the hallway light. There’s something heavy in his expression, something significant. The words are Continental-standard, utterly irreproachable. But John is left with the distinct impression that he’s just been offered help, if he needs it. He meets Charon’s neutral gaze and thinks he might have another person willing to lie for him.

Which means Winston’s decided to pick a side. How that manifests remains to be seen; faked hotel records from years ago, false anecdotes and fabricated memories? _Yes, there were several occasions on which these two guests arrived together. As I recall, only one room was required. They dined together and I could not help but notice that they seemed very close. It stood out to me. It was uncharacteristic for both of them._

“I appreciate the offer,” John says sincerely. “Could you let the visitors know we’ll be down in half an hour?”

“Right away, sir.”

John lets the door swing closed. He’s growing focused, the imminent threat looming real, and John approaches it in the same way he’d approach any other job. Logically. Step by step.

Charon’s offer sits at the forefront of his mind, and something else occurs.

“Hey,” he says, turning back to the bedroom. Santino is cross-legged on the bed, rubbing the dog’s ears. His smile is unguarded; briefly genuine.

“Yeah?”

“You know all those times we stayed at the Continental in Rome, when I did work for you?” John crosses the room to the wardrobe, and a couple of suitcases he doesn’t recognise. One has a tag with his name on it. He kneels carefully, unzipping it. “Any chance Julius might still have that on record? Even if the rooms were always separate-”

“Not always,” Santino says slowly. His expression grows thoughtful, the warmth closing off as his own brand of focus sinks in. “Usually my staff handled the bookings, but I remember making some. Not all separate; why bother, when we never used the second room?”

“Thought you’d be more careful than that.”

“Julius is as discreet as Winston. And I was…reckless, at times. Angry. You remember.”

“Vividly.”

There are clothes in the suitcase, carefully folded, totally unfamiliar. But they’re all in his size, will no doubt fit perfectly, and when John opens the wardrobe he finds several suits that definitely don’t belong to Santino. The old uniform. Black and white, or just the black. He suspects the latter won’t impress their guests. Though Viggo at least will understand the meaning immediately.

John dresses. He picks a white shirt over black, lingering briefly over a couple of lovely knives he finds on a shelf behind the clothes. And beneath those, the guns. Nothing as spectacular as Santino’s grenade launcher; nothing that would stop a tank in its tracks. But still it’s good to be armed again, and he assumes Santino won’t mind John getting familiar with his weapons. Presumably, that’s part and parcel of this marriage.

In the background he can hear Santino speaking quietly into his phone; the conversation takes place in Italian, formal, and the name _Julius_ is brought up several times. It’s worth a shot, if nothing else. Ares and Gianna can fabricate stories, but solid proof from a Continental manager would be worth far more. Though John is well aware that Rome’s establishment is somewhat less strictly neutral than New York’s; it maintains its luxury through donations from grateful patrons, and the Camorra use its services often. Julius may not count for much, in the end. He’s bought and paid for.

He and Santino are different people in the lead-up to facing the Investigator. Efficient, cool, moving around each other with an ease they slip back into, as if well over five years haven’t passed since the last time John prepared for a job and Santino prepared to exploit the shell-shocked void left in the aftermath of John’s work. They clean up, shave and dress with the dog panting gently on the bed, watching without comprehension. There’s no lingering. Work is work.

John pulls a black suit jacket on, admiring what he’s almost certain is bulletproof lining. He’ll ask another time. It’s impressive. He watches Santino drape a tie around his neck (beautiful silk, patterned in a way John wouldn’t dare to try), and thinks, _wait. Newlyweds_.

“Let me,” he says, stepping in to push Santino’s hands away from the tie. It gets him a cool look, and then Santino catches up.

“Sure,” he says. “_Grazie, amore_.”

“Any time. Was Julius helpful?”

“He will search for the records,” Santino says shortly. John takes it as a hint not to ask any further.

They head downstairs together, the dog sitting patiently between them as the elevator drops. There’s no eye contact. No more feigned intimacy. Tension gnaws at John’s stomach, and he wonders if Santino feels the same. This isn’t a joke anymore. Not a game. It’s starting to sink in just how much of a risk they’re taking.

Down at reception, Charon points them in the direction of a private lounge, taking the dog’s leash from John. He doesn’t enjoy the handover at all. The dog watches him leave with Santino, whining just once as they leave its sight.

The door to the lounge is closed. John hesitates. He’s not sure why; there’s a gun holstered under his suit jacket, a knife strapped to his ankle, and he needs neither to kill everyone in the room beyond. Eighty people couldn’t keep him from Iosef Tarasov. There’s nothing to be afraid of.

And still he hesitates. Santino is the one who opens the door.

They’re all seated at a table. Winston at the head, his expression strained. Gianna is next to him, Cassian at one shoulder and Ares the other. Viggo sits at the other end, suit and red shirt, constrained fury. Avi on his right, as usual. To his left, Perkins. John gives her a second glance; she’s openly twitchy, uncomfortable where she is, and the only reason Winston hasn’t killed her yet must be Viggo’s protection. It’s almost reassuring not being the only person in the room with an axe hanging over him.

Misery loves company.

In the middle of the table sits a woman John has never seen before. Grey hair pulled back into an impeccable bun, sharp-edged glasses, pencil skirt and black jacket. Receptionist from the waiting room in hell. Satan’s secretary. There’s a book open on the table in front of her. No one sits near her. No one seems to want to look at her. And that more than anything says, _High Table_.

But she spells it out anyway. A coin emerges from an inner pocket, slid across the table with a grinding sound that makes John’s molars ache. Ebony and gold; inset with a stylised letter _I_ supporting a set of gleaming scales. The Latin text surrounding it is unclear, but the English half is clear enough. _Demarks the Investigator._

“Mister D’Antonio,” she says coldly. “Mister Wick. I am a High Table Investigator. Will you sit down?” She indicates a couple of chairs opposite; it’s an order, not an offer. John sits, stiff and uncomfortable, already looking for another exit. Santino is more casual, draping an arm around the back of John’s chair.

“How nice to meet you,” he says; his smile is charming, utterly fake. “We hope you were not kept waiting.”

“I was,” the Investigator says.

“Ah. Well, you have our apologies.”

“An understandable delay,” Winston says. “Given the circumstances, I’m sure no one would hold it against you-”

“I would.” The Investigator uncaps a pen. “Don’t presume to influence my opinions, Winston. Your impartiality is already in question. I am here to ask questions, and uncover truths. My report will guide the High Table in the judgment they pass, which may range from full exoneration…to execution with extreme prejudice, of both parties involved. At this stage in the proceedings, anything is possible.”

The room grows perceptibly colder. Winston is blandly polite; Gianna is no better. But on the other side of the table, Viggo smiles like a man about to enjoy something he’s been looking forward to for a long time. He catches John’s eye.

“Hello again, John,” he says. “It seems we are doomed to meet in unfortunate circumstances.”

“I had no quarrel with you,” John snaps before he can stop himself. “It was your son who attacked me. I was ready to let you walk, with no hard feelings.”

“And you thought I would simply allow it,” Viggo says. “My only son. My heir. You kill him over a fucking _dog, _and you think somehow that makes us even. And then, when I go to a higher power to ask for the justice that is mine by right…you do this. Astonishing. It wasn’t enough to destroy yourself. You had to ruin someone else as well.”

“I dispute that,” Santino says calmly. “Our marriage has nothing to do with the attack on your son. They are separate matters entirely.”

Viggo glances at him. Regret shows briefly on his face. “I knew your father well,” he says. John feels Santino’s arm tense around him. “Giuseppe D’Antonio; one of the old guard. My condolences for your loss. He was a good man, though sometimes shortsighted. You know, I always said to him, _Giuseppe, why are you so harsh with your son? Have you seen my Iosef? However disappointing your boy is, you should be glad that he is not worse._”

“Viggo,” John barks before anyone else can say anything. He doesn’t dare look at Santino. “Enough. We’re here because the High Table demands, so unless you have anything useful to say, I suggest you keep your mouth shut-”

“Or what?” Viggo asks. “You know the rules, John. No blood on Continental grounds.”

“As Miss Perkins can attest,” Winston murmurs. It causes something of a ripple, as everyone in the room glances at her. She scowls through a black eye John vaguely remembers giving her. Fair enough; she punched him in his freshly stitched ribs. The memory still makes him flinch.

“There will be no bloodshed while I am here,” the Investigator says. “And all parties involved will refrain from antagonising each other until I can conduct interviews and take down the truth of what has happened. I speak with the High Table’s voice; you may take my orders as their decree. Failure to obey will be responded to with utmost seriousness. Are there any questions?”

“Yes,” Gianna says. It’s the first she’s spoken since John’s entered the room. He looks at her. She keeps her eyes on the Investigator. “The High Table has my father’s will under lock and key; its reading was delayed due to the unfortunate affair with Signor Tarasov’s son and…my new brother in law. I would like to know when we can expect its release. You must understand; further delays only magnify the grief my family suffers. How can we begin to heal without hearing his final words?”

“The High Table is aware of your situation.”

“Of course,” Santino says coldly. “And when can we expect their awareness to translate into action?”

“That is not for me to decide,” the Investigator tells him. “Although I imagine it will depend on how quickly we can progress with the matter at hand.”

The meaning is clear; Gianna and Santino glance at each other, and John can feel the tension in Santino’s arm around his shoulders. He wonders. Yes, it makes sense that they want the will read; one of them is getting a High Table seat, and their lives are essentially on hold until they find out who. But there seems to be more to it than he’d assumed. The conspiratorial glances between them, Santino’s tension and Gianna’s teeth in her lower lip. This isn’t just about wanting to know who daddy liked best. They need that will read.

There’s something going on here that Santino hasn’t told him. And the secrecy really doesn’t bode well for either of them.

John clears his throat. “I’m…prepared to cooperate fully with the investigation. If you want to get started.”

“Yeah,” Santino mutters. “The faster we get this done, the better.”

“Fine.” The Investigator sets her pen to the pages of the book; John eyes it, crushes the temptation to lunge across the table and take it from her. To shove it through Viggo’s throat. “The charges, as I understand them: John Wick, you engaged in an act of fraud to avoid the High Table’s justice in another matter, which for the moment remains irrelevant. Rather than attending the trial and defending yourself, you instead took part in a false marriage to a man who is either shortly to possess a High Table seat, or is the heir to that seat’s new owner. This makes him equally complicit in your fraud, and therefore both of you stand to face judgment.”

“It’s not fraud,” John says. “The marriage is real. Winston can tell you that.”

Winston shrugs. “I can. I officiated it myself, and witnessed the giving of vows, the signing of the book, and the exchange of rings. The event was registered with the appropriate office. In the eyes of our laws, everything is perfectly in order. And may I just take the time to congratulate the happy couple, once again.”

“Your congratulations are irrelevant. However, your witnessing of the marriage is not; I have already examined the book, and my observations concur with your evidence. Legally, this marriage is valid.”

Viggo gives a harsh bark of laughter. At his side, Avi raises his brows. “Yeah, we know it’s legal,” he says mildly. “I could have told you that right away. And maybe for the rest of the world, that’d be enough. But not here. Legal and valid are two different things around here. And it’s pretty convenient that we show up to ask questions about Iosef’s murder, only to find that John’s suddenly gotten hitched to someone who makes him immune. That’s way too convenient.”

“These things happen,” John says. “It’s not always a conspiracy.”

Avi gives him a dry smile. “Not with you, John. I remember you. You commit to something, that’s it. You vanish for five years with the woman of your dreams, and then not a month after she dies you’re…what? Crazy about some guy you left behind in your dark past?”

“The one that got away,” Viggo murmurs. Avi gives him an amiable nod.

“Or maybe you’re back with your ex? How exactly were you planning on spinning it? Because I have to tell you, I can’t wait to hear this story.”

John bites down on his tongue. They lay it out so easily; make the whole situation sound ridiculous. It is ridiculous. He knew that from the start and still went through with it. There’s no possible way to convince.

And yet, he’s had moments where he believes. Moments where the lines between truth and lie blurred so much as to form a completely new entity, something far more complicated than “this thing between us is not grounded in reality”. It is. And that has to be what saves them.

“I know how the situation looks to you,” Santino says. His arm drapes around John’s shoulders, fingers idly stroking the side of John’s neck. “Believe me; I am as surprised as you are. I did not intend for things to happen this way when I went to see if John needed help after his ordeal.”

The Investigator looks up from her notes. “You had no contact during the five years of his retirement?”

“None.”

“And before that?”

Santino hesitates. He glances at John; it’s well done, this crafted reluctance, this image of a man wary of divulging long-kept secrets. John takes it as a cue.

“We were…close.”

“John has been a family friend for years,” Santino murmurs. “Viggo can attest to that; he often allowed us to borrow John’s skills. You will find no shortage of witnesses who can support it. And no shortage of graves.”

“I have a lot of assassins on my payroll,” Viggo says coldly. “And yet, somehow, I manage not to fuck them. The fact that he worked for the D’Antonio family means nothing.”

Santino gives him a wry smile. “I lacked your self-control, Signor Tarasov. I grew to trust John. After a while I realised that I did not just desire his friendship, or his admiration. It went deeper than that. And unfortunately for us both, the desire was mutual.”

“So you claim a prior romantic relationship,” the Investigator says without inflection. “Can anyone provide confirmation?”

“Yes,” Gianna says. “Though I admit I tried to turn a blind eye where I could; at the time, I did not approve. It was not a suitable match.”

Clever of her. And convincing; for a moment John looks at her and wonders. _Did_ she know?

And then Ares steps forward. She gives the room a contemptuous salute; her scowl seems fixed in place. _I knew_, she signs. _I saw so many things I want to unsee. You have no idea._

There are laughs from those who can understand her; Santino, Gianna, and Cassian’s lips twitch. The Investigator just nods, jotting something down without requesting interpretation.

“Two witnesses,” she says. “Though there is potential for bias, given their relationships to the accused.”

“I have reached out to the manager of the Continental in Rome,” Santino tells her. “John and I were there often, on occasions when he worked for me. There should be records of our visits.”

“That’s not proof,” Perkins says. She curls her lip in Winston’s direction; he ignores her. “I have a room here tonight, and so does Viggo. That doesn’t mean I’m riding his dick.”

“I will wait to see the records before I pass judgement on their usefulness,” the Investigator says. “Although your objection is valid, and noted.”

John shifts uncomfortably in his chair. The sitting still is starting to grate on him; the questions, the arguments, the suspicion and dislike. Feels like he’s under assault, and the only exit is the door behind him. It’s not an option here. He has to stay.

He doesn’t know how to convey what he’s only barely starting to remember. His past, his buried history, the memories mixed with concrete dust, locked up and hidden and never uncovered. He spent five years telling himself not to go there. Telling himself that the past held only pain.

And it’s just not true. He’s starting to come to terms with the fact that there were moments of intense happiness between the unbearable suffering. Stars in the black and smothering sky.

“We were careful,” he says. “We had to be; if you know how it was back then, you understand. Nobody could know. I _left_ because of how things were.”

“To marry someone else.”

“With my blessing,” Santino says quietly. “I saw what working for the Tarasovs was doing to John, and I was not in a position to help him. I did try; no doubt Viggo has kept the documentation. I tried to buy John’s contract personally…several times. The deals fell through. I don’t believe Viggo ever took them seriously, but I was serious in my offers.”

It should not hurt the way it does, hearing him say it. There’s no reason for it. And still, John feels like he’s just been knifed. “I didn’t know that.”

“I do not enjoy admitting to failure,” Santino says. “But I swear to you, I tried.” His mouth is tight. In the background, John is aware of Avi admitting that they do still have the documentation, that he can supply it, that it doesn’t mean anything-

_I didn’t know, _John thinks. He’s not sure what to do, how to feel, why it is that he can’t just brush the knowledge off as too little and too late. _I didn’t fucking know you tried that. I thought the only time you stepped in to help was when I begged, and then you offered a marker-_

_What were you offering Viggo for my contract? _It must have been a fortune. Santino has his own lands, his own business ventures, his own access to the vast family accounts, and still the price of the Boogeyman’s collar would have been unimaginable. For Santino to offer, to accept rejection and offer again, to then give John a marker he might never have been able to call on for the sake of assuring his freedom…

It doesn’t mean much for their case. But for John, it’s something he barely knows how to deal with.

“You should have told me,” he says unsteadily. “I would have…”

“No,” Santino says. “There was nothing you could do that would not end in your death. I accepted that, eventually. You found peace. The only regret I have is that you did not get to keep it.”

“That ends the first round of questions,” the Investigator says abruptly.

Startled, John makes himself look away from Santino (from the regret, the rage, the guilt, the violent storm in his pale eyes) and pay attention to her. She caps her pen in a brisk motion. In front of her, the book shines with black ink and indecipherable markings. Some kind of code. “We will resume when I am ready. For the moment, I require the documentation that has been mentioned, and the records from Rome’s Continental. I will speak to several witnesses alone. We adjourn for the moment. You may not leave Continental grounds. You may not discuss the case with anyone not in this room. Dismissed.”

No one seems to know what it means. Good news, bad news, no news at all; the Investigator has a face like a smooth stone wall. Whatever she’s thinking, she doesn’t plan to share.

But John is grateful for the break. He stands unsteadily, gripping the back of the chair. He’s surprised to find Gianna at his elbow. Dressed in full black, she smells faintly of roses. Touches his forearm gently.

“Will you walk with me?” she asks. “Within Continental grounds, of course.” It’s clear that she wants something from him. John gives her a tired look; any other time he thinks he’d agree, if only because any favour Gianna sees fit to ask is sure to be a challenge. For the moment, though, he finds he’s just not interested.

“Later,” he tells her. “Maybe. Right now I’d like a word with my husband.” Her response doesn’t matter; he’s already turning away, catching Santino’s eye and jerking his head towards the door. Anywhere will do. Anywhere that’s not this room.

“Yeah,” Santino agrees. He stands. “Let’s talk.”

They leave as they arrived; together, side by side with every eye in the room on them.


	7. Reflections of the Soul

“You should have told me,” John says. “I needed to know.” The Continental’s rooftop garden is always beautifully kept; the statues and greenery have a classic appeal that almost balance out Winston’s inclination towards the ostentatious. It would be nice to walk around them. The rain has other ideas.

They stand in the doorway, the glass doors opening out onto a bleak afternoon, slippery concrete tiles and grey cityscape depression. The mist obscures most of their surroundings.

“You knew my father had made offers for your contract,” Santino says. “What did it matter if I did the same?”

“Your father led the Camorra. He had reason to offer.”

“So did I.”

John gives a tired sigh. He wraps an arm around Santino’s shoulders; he almost expects rejection, but Santino allows himself to be pulled closer. One of his arms finds its way around John’s waist. They lean on each other.

It’ll work for the cameras. They need it to; they need anything that’ll help their case.

“What did you offer?” he asks.

Santino shrugs against him. “Half my fortune.”

“_Santino_.”

“I would have recovered, though it would have taken several years. But to have you working for me exclusively…so many things would have been easier. And I would not have pushed you as hard as Viggo did. Never like that.”

“So you wanted your own personal nightmare,” John says heavily. “The Boogeyman, with your collar around his neck.” It makes more sense than any of the alternatives. Nothing personal; just another power play in the underworld’s game of death.

Beside him, Santino makes a frustrated sound. “_Mio Dio, _John, you’re better than this. Yeah, I wanted the famous John Wick on my staff. Who wouldn’t? With you, I could have forced the other clans to swear fealty to me, or die at your hand. I could have forced back the Mafia, the ‘Ndrangheta. I could have stabilised our territories within months. Your skills have value, and I wanted them. But they were never the only reason I tried to buy your contract. I am capable of wanting more than one thing at a time.”

“So what did you want?”

“You,” Santino tells him. “All aspects of you. Standing by my side, as my partner. We could have achieved so many things together. We could have changed everything.”

More likely they would have both died. Ground up bloody by the force of Santino’s ruthless ambition, and the unrelenting truth that he was never going to be the favourite child. That whatever family resources his father could spare would be passed on to Gianna, who was older, more cunning, less passionately unpredictable. They would have died, together or separate, and their deaths would have made no difference whatsoever to the world around them. Just one more violent tragedy among countless.

And now history seems set on repeating itself. They have a second chance to make the mistakes they avoided the first time around. John turns his head, pressing his lips to Santino’s temple.

“Tell me what’s going on with the Camorra,” he says. “The way you and Gianna were acting back there…I’m guessing something’s up with the will.”

“The problems preceded the will, but yes. These delays are not helping.”

“What’s wrong?”

“My father-” Santino hesitates. He stares out at the rain-drenched garden, the weeping statues. “There were some decisions in the last few years which he should not have made. Gianna will disagree; she believes they were correct, and that the outcome we now face is a matter of bad luck. She is wrong. They both were. The expansion through New York was badly handled; too much caution, when we needed to strike decisively. Too slow. We are spreading ourselves thin. And now in the wake of my father’s death, all the cracks are widening. The High Table seat remains unclaimed. Every day we cannot act is another clan that begins to question our ability to rule.”

“This is sounding pretty familiar.”

“It sounds like war,” Santino says. “Maybe it will be. I don’t know. Welcome back, John. Everything is exactly as you left it, and we are all damned.”

The rain grows heavier by the minute. Eventually, they head back into the hotel.

Afternoon becomes evening, and John tries not to lose his mind as the walls start closing in. Word is spreading through the Continental’s guests; the whispers are only slightly less subtle than the stares. John has never coped well with being the center of attention. He craves retreat, silence, a moment or two of peace. He gets none of those things. Hiding away is not an option when he has a marriage to fake. And there are cameras everywhere.

Gianna and Cassian are nowhere to be found. Winston seems to be avoiding them. Ares is also missing; Santino responds with a shrug when John mentions it over dinner in the main dining room. He does a decent job of pretending he’s not worried, but the silence is grating. They fake smiles; touch each other and share a dessert, and it all feels about as real as the wedding ceremony did. The rain hasn’t let up. Thunder rumbles through the walls and windows.

_It sounds like war,_ runs through John’s head. He struggles to force polite conversation, and knows he’s leaving Santino to fill in long silences. They give up early. Coffee after dinner is brusquely turned away; the dining room goes quiet as they leave.

Out in the hallway, John realises he has no idea what to do with himself. He can come up with options; head for the club underground, kill a couple of hours over alcohol and ignored stress, until he convinces himself he actually wants to take Santino back upstairs and try for a repeat of this morning. Or skip the club and see just how far they can push each other before someone snaps and there’s blood on the sheets.

Both have a sick kind of appeal. Both would be perfect for who they used to be. Neither will impress the Investigator.

“Reception, I think,” Santino says abruptly. “The concierge will know where Winston is, at least. I hate all this mystery.”

“Yeah.”

Reception is empty, the desk unmanned. John has a terrible sense of foreboding. A sense that the hotel is no longer a safe place to be, an urge to grab Santino and drag him _out_, to somewhere the world still makes sense-

Thunder makes the windows rattle. From behind the reception desk comes a high pitched whimper.

Charon stands, looking uncharacteristically hassled. He’s openly pleased to see them.

“Ah, excellent,” he says. “I was about to call. I am very sorry, but it seems your dog has a severe dislike of the thunder. It will not respond to anything I do.”

“Yeah,” Santino says. “It’s easily scared. There was an incident with a minigun.”

“That is…unfortunate.”

“It was not ideal.”

John leaves them both to the pleasantries, kneeling behind the reception desk to coax his terrified dog out from where it’s plastered itself into the shadows. It knows him. He can see the moment it recognises him, decides that he’s trustworthy, and slinks out to nuzzle his hand.

“Good dog,” he murmurs to it. “You’re okay. No one’s shooting at you this time. They don’t get to do that here.”

“I managed to take it for a walk before the thunder started,” Charon says. “And it has been fed. If you wished to keep it with you for the night, I am sure it would appreciate the company.”

“Thanks.”

“Have you seen the manager?” Santino asks.

Charon gives him an inscrutable look. “I am sorry, sir, but the manager is unavailable this evening. Can I pass on a message?”

“No. Thank you.” Santino is clearly irritated at the non-response. Still, he relaxes enough to stroke the dog’s head when it goes to him, muttering something low and reassuring. Maybe it makes him feel better in turn. When he glances at John, he seems more tired than angry.

“Can I interest you in an early night?” he asks.

“Please,” John says.

The rain stays heavy all evening. It beats down on the windows of their room, hiding their view of the city lights, hammering like a headache. They stretch out on the couch, Santino with a laptop, John with a book from the library downstairs. The dog lies between them, head on Santino’s thigh, tail on John’s. It jumps with every rumble of thunder, but it seems to trust that they can keep it from harm.

“It still doesn’t have a name,” Santino remarks at some point. John glances up from the book he barely registers.

“I’m not good with names.”

“It’s not for me to name; you had it first.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“If I disapprove of your choice, I have veto rights.” Santino goes back to the laptop. Whatever he’s looking at doesn’t seem to impress him, but his expression is pure resignation. No surprises in the reports, then. And nothing he can do to intervene. He’s as trapped as John is, now. Just as helpless, and just as ill-equipped to deal with the feeling. In that, they’ve always been alike. They are not men given to patience.

“Any regrets?” Santino asks out of nowhere. John gives him a startled look, then inclines his head towards the poorly concealed camera in the ceiling. It’s not the only one, but his point is made. Santino shrugs. _Like I give a fuck right now_, he doesn’t say. Doesn’t need to. It’s written all over him.

“I never thought it would be easy,” John says, choosing his words carefully. “Wish we’d had a bit more time to talk things over. Wish we’d had more time in general.”

“There is never enough time,” Santino agrees. “But we don’t realise until it runs out. I regret that I did not give you more time, before you retired. Or more honesty.”

“You never lied to me.” John reaches over the sleeping dog’s back, taking Santino’s left hand. The wedding ring shines a dull gold, bruised with his family’s crest.

“I hid things from you,” Santino says. He stares down at John’s hand in his, John’s thumb rubbing idly over the ring. “The night you left- the night of your Impossible Task. I told you that it was right for you to go. That you deserved happiness. And that was true. But it was not the thing I wished to say to you.”

“Which was?”

“Stay,” Santino says quietly. “Stay with me, John. I like the man I am far more when you are with me. That man still knows what happiness feels like.” He squeezes John’s fingers.

They rise from the couch carefully, leaving the dog asleep. Strip each other with a care, a respect that feels like the most natural thing in the world for the moment they move in. Clothes folded while hands roam; jackets hung up in between open-mouthed kisses. Naked against the wardrobe door, John presses Santino into the wood, cups his face and licks deep into his mouth, taking his moans and the blunt drag of his nails down the tattoos on John’s back.

If not for his injuries, he’d have the other man’s legs around his waist; fuck him there against the door, ankles hooked in the small of John’s back, cursing him out the whole time. He’s done it before. He remembers, and vividly. But it’s not an option for the moment, and the mood isn’t right for it anyway. They coax each other onto the bed. Face to face, on their sides in deference to John’s limited movement. Legs entwined, pressing up close, aching muscles meeting bruises.

John lifts a hand to Santino’s throat. He leaves it there a few seconds too long; the cameras are watching, he knows it, but he also knows Santino. There are things he wants that John can’t give him while there are witnesses to judge. Still, the suggestion is present. Santino rests his chin in the curve of John’s thumb and forefinger. A knowing smile is shared, a promise in the kiss that follows, more teeth than gentleness. John’s ribs ache with the strain of grinding up against Santino’s thigh. As pain goes, it’s starting to grow on him.

They come into each other’s hands, panting into each other’s necks and sharing in the shudders when they finish. John drops his head to the pillow, exhausted. He watches in something of a daze as Santino lifts one smeared hand up, raises an eyebrow and slowly licks come from one of his fingers.

“You’re unbelievable,” John says. But he tilts his head back, parting his lips to suck on the finger Santino places between them. And then the rest, one by one, accepting the intrusion and the taste of salt on his tongue. Taking him by the wrist to kiss over his knuckles. Santino watches him with an expression of total focus.

“Good,” he murmurs as John licks his palm clean. “Good, John. _Bravo_.”

There’s not enough energy left in John to be appalled at either of them. And he’s long since stopped wondering what crazed thing it is that Santino awakens in him. There just aren’t words.

He sleeps with his back pressed to Santino’s. At some point in the night, the dog leaves the couch and pads over to the bed, leaping up between them. It finds a place to settle at the base of the bed. John leans an ankle against its spine, slipping easily back into sleep.

The morning starts with another phone call at seven, Charon apologetic on the other end of the line. “I am sorry for waking you-”

“Investigator’s an early starter?”

“Very much so.”

“Figures.”

“I have taken the liberty of sending breakfast up to your room. Your presence is required by eight at the latest.”

John drops back onto the pillows. He doesn’t actually have room to stretch the sleep from his muscles; the dog lies across the base of the bed, and Santino is definitely taking up more than his half. Vengeful, John nudges them both. The dog ignores him completely.

“I know,” Santino says without opening his eyes. “But if you touch me again before the coffee comes, we are going to have problems.”

“Continental probably offers in-house marital counseling.”

“John. You never talk. And now I am begging you, please, stop talking.”

They make it downstairs just before the deadline, stopping off at reception to hand the dog over to Charon. The arrangement seems to suit everyone involved just fine; John feels a bit less guilty about leaving them to it.

The private lounge is quieter than the day before; Viggo sits at one end of the main table, and the Investigator takes the other. They’re alone. John glances at Santino, finding nothing helpful on his face. If he feels cornered by the layout of the room, he doesn’t show it. But he must have known that Gianna wouldn’t be attending. It would have been nice to hear it from him first.

“Good morning,” Viggo says. He’s cheerful. In front of him, a tumbler of something clear that almost certainly isn’t water. Still, his hands are steady as he lifts it in a toast. “So nice to see the…happy couple.”

“Viggo,” Santino says pleasantly. John doesn’t bother saying anything. He takes his seat and distracts himself, again, with checking for exits. Counting sharp objects. Counting _blunt_ objects, until he feels a little more controlled. It takes longer than it should.

“I have spoken with several witnesses,” the Investigator says. “They are no longer required at these meetings. I was hoping to ask you both some questions, but Viggo tells me he can supply someone else who may be able to expand on your relationship prior to Mister Wick’s retirement. And so we wait.”

“Not long,” Viggo says. “Avi tells me they have just arrived at the front of hotel. Apparently Miss Perkins was very convincing.” He looks at John and smiles. “She does not appreciate having her kills stolen out from beneath her. And I do not appreciate being cheated.”

John stops breathing. “You _pulled_ that contract.”

“Not before he accepted it. I went to him personally, John. I spoke to him, face to face, under his roof. We shared a drink. He made me a promise.”

“Not everyone sells their friends out as fast as you do.”

“He was my friend too,” Viggo says. “Or so I believed. Imagine my sense of betrayal. I trusted him with the life of my son…and instead he opened up the door and ushered in the reaper. It turns out he was closer to you. Fine. In that case, surely he can tell us _all_ about your relationship with Mister D’Antonio five years ago.”

Santino throws John a wary look. This clearly isn’t something he’s been planning for; whatever happens next, they’ll be working blind.

John has a pretty good idea of how things are going to play out. He never told Marcus. Never told Winston, or Gianna, or anyone, because it was nobody’s business but theirs. Because he wouldn’t have known what to tell them anyway. Because all the things he’s ever loved have been taken from him, unless he kept them nameless. Secret. It was the only choice he had.

The door opens. John turns in his seat.

Marcus enters with a startling amount of dignity for a man wearing ancient pyjamas, a dressing gown and tartan slippers. He has a couple of Viggo’s guards at his back, but doesn’t pay them any attention whatsoever; he knows the Continental rule like the stock of his rifle, and he’s known Winston longer than anyone in this room. There’s nothing he needs to worry about. And he’s unharmed, as far as John can tell. No blood. No limping, or obvious injuries. They haven’t hurt him for what he did. Not yet.

“It is way too early for all this excitement,” Marcus snaps. “What’s wrong with you people? I have a phone. Call me. Schedule an appointment at a time we can all agree on, like civilised human beings.” He takes the empty chair at John’s side, turning to raise his eyebrows as Perkins enters the room in his wake. “_How_ has Winston not dealt with you yet? I saw what you did.”

“Temporary reprieve,” Perkins says with a brittle smile. “It happens.”

“Not in my lifetime, it hasn’t.”

The Investigator opens a fresh page of her notebook. “And you are?”

“Confused,” Marcus tells her. “No idea what’s going on, or what I’m doing here. Though present company explains a couple of things. John. Hey. What the hell have you gotten me into this time?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Yeah,” Marcus says. “I bet it is. Nice hickeys, by the way. I see you’ve been busy.” He and Santino exchange polite nods; John sits between them and fights the urge to get up and leave. He only just manages to keep himself from tugging the collar of his shirt higher. It won’t help. That seems intentional.

“You know these two, then,” the Investigator says.

Marcus shrugs. “I’ve known John almost since the day he got into the business; taught him all I know, and then learned a few things myself. As for Mister D’Antonio, I’ve done some work for him. He pays well. John likes him. Those are the only things that concern me. Now, you mind telling me what’s going on?”

“Viggo went to the High Table,” John says shortly.

“It was my right,” Viggo snarls at him, rising from his seat. John stands in turn, bracing for a fight. Viggo across the table from him, Perkins and two other guards by the door. Avi as well, and who knows what he’s armed with. Lawyers are a whole other beast. “The boy was worthless, but he was mine. You did not have the right to take him. He was not yours to kill-”

“He broke into my home and _attacked _me. Killed-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Viggo says. “Killed your dog, stole your car, who cares? It was a minor infraction. I called you to apologise. I was ready to replace what was taken and then pay a sizeable fucking donation into your retirement fund. We could have settled this like men. Instead, you lashed out like the rabid dog you always were-”

“Careful,” Santino says.

It’s not loud, but it does catch Viggo’s attention. And for all his fury, his outrage, Viggo has always been a clever man at his core. He knows to rein himself in as he turns towards Santino, who lounges back in his chair with a smile like a cobra’s hiss, and more power in his hands than Viggo has ever possessed. “Just remember, Mister Tarasov: there will come a time when this investigation ends. Days, weeks, it doesn’t matter. This will end. And when it is ended, you do not want me to remember you as the man who called my husband a _rabid dog _in my presence.”

“Now the knives are out,” Marcus says mildly. “Drop it, Viggo. Don’t fuck with the Camorra. Take it from someone who’s made good money out of killing the people who try.”

Viggo holds out. So does John; he aches, deep inside his bones, where painkillers won’t reach. He’s rubbed raw. And it would feel so good to dive across the table and beat Viggo’s face into any available surface, until there wasn’t enough left to form smugness, or mockery, or triumph. It would be the end; _excommunicado_, the one true death. But if he’s dead anyway, what’s the hold up?

Behind him, the door opens again. John doesn’t turn.

Glass clinks.

“Thank god,” Marcus says. “Winston still cares. And here I was thinking I’d have to go fetch my own.” A well-dressed waiter hands him a glass of brownish liquid. He seems genuinely pleased to receive it. John watches as drinks are set around the table. Water for the Investigator. A cappuccino each for himself and Santino. More vodka for Viggo. And Marcus, with whatever unspeakable fad diet he’s currently self-administering.

“Well,” Santino says. “This is more pleasant. John, please. We are here to cooperate.”

John sinks back down into his seat. He doesn’t particularly want the coffee, but it gives him something to wrap his hands around. He pictures Viggo’s neck. Santino pats him sympathetically on the thigh. Chances are he’s imagining the exact same thing.

Marcus sips his drink with every appearance of enjoyment. “So is anyone going to tell me what’s going on? What did John do this time?”

“Took the coward’s way out,” Viggo mutters. John doesn’t shove his teaspoon through one of the man’s eyes. It’s a close thing. He makes himself focus on Marcus.

“This is going to sound…insane,” he says.

“Sure,” Marcus says. “Just like all the other stunts you’ve pulled. Go ahead, make my day. What’d you do?”

“Married into the mob.”

Marcus actually chokes on his juice. He sets the glass down, still coughing, and holds out an expectant hand. John’s known him long enough to read what’s wanted without being told. Resigned, bitter, resentful, he offers his left hand. Marcus inspects his ring finger, the heavy gold and the family crest.

“Well, would you look at that,” he says. “I’m guessing it’s real? Vows given, papers signed and witnessed?”

“Yeah. By Winston.”

“Huh.” Marcus releases the ring, and John drops his hand out of sight. “Well, it’s about goddamn time.”

Things get very quiet. The background scratch of the Investigator’s pen on paper stops.

“So this doesn’t come as a surprise to you,” she says.

Marcus shrugs into John’s utter confusion. “No. Why, is it supposed to?”

“Marcus, I never told you,” John says. It comes out vehement; he can’t look at Santino, not right now, but he needs to make it clear. This is one promise he hasn’t broken, and it’s not one he can afford to have questioned. “Never.”

“Didn’t have to,” Marcus tells him. “How long have we known each other? I had a pretty good idea before I even met him, just from the way you’d talk. No one’s _that_ excited to go and kill for the Italians. And I did jobs with the two of you; there’s nothing wrong with my eyesight. But you never brought it up, so I figured you had it handled. Whatever it was.”

“It…was,” John says. “And it was serious.”

Marcus nods slowly. “Yeah. You know, that doesn’t surprise me. Even if you did leave.”

“I told him he should,” Santino says. “It was better for him. He could be happy.”

John turns. Last night’s discussion weighs on him; secrets and things left unsaid, injustices he never addressed. They’re starting to mount up. “I was happy with you,” he says. “It was everything else that I wanted to leave behind.”

Santino gives him a noncommittal smile, a shrug. “Of course.”

The Investigator clears her throat. “So the relationship was never acknowledged. The High Table doesn’t deal in guesses; if there was never any proof, then this testimony is weak.”

“What testimony?” Marcus asks. “What exactly are you trying to prove here?”

Viggo laughs. It goes on too long, grating on John’s nerves. “John didn’t want to face the consequences of killing my son. When the High Table turned its eyes on him, he looked to someone else to protect him. But I am not so easily dissuaded. And the Table does not appreciate people laughing in its face. We are _here_ to prove that their blissful, _convenient_ marriage is a total sham, and that they are both liars who deserve to face justice.”

Marcus whistles, impressed. “That’s a new one.”

“But true nonetheless.”

“Have you considered that maybe this isn’t as simple as it looks? The timing’s convenient; doesn’t make the whole thing fake. I’m not all that surprised.” Marcus raises his eyebrows in John’s direction. “Just disappointed I wasn’t called in as best man. Seriously, John? I get not wanting that when you married Helen, but this is an honest-to-the-devil underworld wedding. You got hitched to a crime lord! Where was my invite?”

“We kind of dropped the ball on wedding planning,” John says. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, you’d better be.”

“I have questions,” the Investigator says. She peers at them all through her sharp-edged glasses; her standard blank expression is slightly marred by something that might be confusion. “And the witness is distracted by other parties present. I have no choice but to ask you all to leave. Other than - Marcus, is it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Marcus stays. Everyone else will vacate the premises immediately.”

It’s a welcome reprieve; John doesn’t think he’s ever hated a room as much as he’s starting to hate this one. He claps Marcus on the shoulder as he stands, muttering another apology. Marcus just rolls his eyes.

“I want to say this isn’t the weirdest thing I’ve ever done for you,” he says dryly. “But I’m not that good of a liar. Congratulations on your wedding, jackass. Invite me to the anniversary party.”

Viggo’s thugs move quickly away from the door as John approaches. Perkins is slower; she lingers, and he can tell she’s thinking about the night she ambushed him, the fight she almost won. Weighing her options. Five years of retirement and a serious injury versus all her cunning and trickery. But for all that, he beat her last time. He’ll do it again if he needs to.

She steps out of his way without any semblance of haste. “I’ll see you soon, John,” she whispers. “Viggo’s working on getting me a pardon.”

“Winston doesn’t do pardons.”

“Winston doesn’t get a choice.”

It turns into another grim, lingering day. Overcast, the rain sticking around like the tail end of an illness, and the Continental seems so much smaller when leaving it isn’t an option. John finds himself drifting. He retrieves the dog from Charon, taking it outside for a half hour when the clouds briefly part to let a bit of sun through. Santino joins him. On the rooftop garden, they mutilate one of Winston’s perfect shrubberies, cutting branches to throw for a dog that hasn’t yet mastered the “give it back” part of fetching.

There’s not much they can say to each other. John makes brief eye contact while stripping leaves from a stick with a switchblade.

“I didn’t tell Marcus,” he says. “I swear. I’ve broken a lot of promises, but not that one. I knew what the risks were for you.”

Santino shrugs, unconcerned. “I never doubted it.” He takes the stick John hands him. They go back to their attempts to teach the dog some discipline; the rain returns before they achieve anything close to success.

He sees Gianna briefly around midday. She comes into the dining room as lunch is ending, catching Santino’s eye. Something sharp in her expression; she beckons, and he stands without a word. Neither of them gives any sign that they want John’s company, so he doesn’t make a move to follow. It’s the last he sees of them all afternoon.

Charon tells him that Winston is still “otherwise occupied”. Marcus doesn’t reappear. Downstairs at in the club, he catches Addy at the start of her shift. She gives him a pitying look, but not the bourbon he requests.

“It’s two in the afternoon, and you’ve only been married a couple of days,” she tells him. “It’s way too soon to start day drinking. By the way - screw you for not telling me. I can’t believe you kept that quiet. I had to hear it from Ares after she was four shots down, and then I thought she was just messing with me.”

“Addy, come on.”

“Bar’s closed, John,” she says. “Sorry. I’m doing this because I care. Also, Winston said to keep an eye on you and make sure you stay functional.”

“Great. Where is he?”

She raises her hands; _do I look like I know that? _John tries not to feel too betrayed; in all the years he’s been coming here, she’s never once refused to serve him. If that doesn’t say anything about where he stands these days, nothing does.

He doesn’t know what he’s trying to avoid most. The Investigator? The threat of execution hanging over him like the ubiquitous Continental chandeliers? The secrets he’s not being let in on, which will almost certainly come back to bite him? The marriage he didn’t want, and the man he doesn’t know what to feel for?

The silence. It’s almost as bad as it was back home, in the empty hours after Helen’s death. Feeling useless, feeling helpless. Feeling locked inside the walls of his own skin, with no means of escape from the grief that haunts a corner of his too-small cage. He doesn’t want to brood over it. The last few days, he’s had enough on his mind to push it away, though briefly. But it’s always there.

The ring on his finger is too heavy, and the family crest might as well be a brand on his back with all the other tattoos. He doesn’t want to think about that either.

Early evening finds him in the library, hiding from the stares of the other guests. Done with the day, dreading the next. A door opens. Santino enters with the Investigator at his shoulder. John looks between them, searching for signs of…anything. Wondering why no one sent warning if Santino was being questioned alone. He waits for someone else to speak first.

“I’m losing my mind in here,” Santino announces. “Rome’s Continental has so much more to offer for entertainment. For _culture_. John, I wonder if you would like to join me for an outing?”

“Love to,” John says. “But last I heard, we’re stuck here.”

The Investigator stares at him. She doesn’t seem to blink. “Your husband believes that I cannot accurately observe your behaviour if you feel trapped by your surroundings. His argument has merit. I will permit a two hour period of leave from the Continental, as long as I accompany you, unobtrusively.”

As if there’s anything unobtrusive about being stalked by a High Table minion. Still, John is at the stage where he’ll take any form of distraction. “Where are we going?”

“A museum,” Santino says. “The New Modern NYC. There is an exhibit I want to show you.”

Any form of distraction. Anything at all. John bites back a sigh. “I…sure. Fine. Sounds thrilling.”

“Not going to ask what it is?”

“I figured you’d just tell me.”

Santino actually smiles at the tone. “There is something of a sentimental attachment, I admit. My family owns the place; I have managed it for the last year. This is the first exhibit I selected and organised myself, without…outside input.” _Without my father’s judgment, _he doesn’t say, but it’s clear from the context. And equally clear that this is something he genuinely wants to show off; he’s overly casual, too unconcerned. He really does want John to see this.

To his own surprise, John finds himself curious. “In that case, yeah. I’d love to see it.”

They leave immediately. The Investigator takes the passenger seat in the car, letting them sit together in the back. John makes an effort to pry details from Santino; it doesn’t get him anywhere. Santino grows quiet, and quieter still as they approach the museum. Nerves, maybe. Uncharacteristic to anyone who doesn’t know him, but startlingly familiar to John.

He remembers how Santino gets about the things he’s really proud of. Things he pours his heart into; it’s not always work, though often it is. Careful takeovers, brutally efficient jobs. Acts of violence curated like exhibitions, and it’s never been a surprise to see Santino move as easily in a gallery as he does at the scene of a massacre. Proud of himself and trying to hide it. Looking to John, unable to help himself. Looking for someone he admires to tell him he’s done well.

They arrive in silence. In between the habitual checks that happen without second thought (floor plan, exits, vulnerabilities, scoping out the waning evening crowds for weapons), John resolves to enjoy the exhibit. Santino deserves that much.

The rooms inside are a standard unremarkable museum white, clean lines and paintings sparse on the walls. John would be happy to slow down and drift past them, pretending admiration, if Santino wanted that from him. He can’t appreciate art, but he’s more than capable of indulging other people’s whims. He wouldn’t mind. But the paintings don’t seem to be the draw here.

There’s an atrium. A flickering digital poster; garish, aggressive colours, a special exhibition. _Reflections of the Soul. _John feels himself smile, just a little.

“This one, I assume,” he says. “Looks like your usual level of subtlety.”

Santino gives him a stiff nod. He seems distracted, ill at ease. Abruptly, he turns away from the sign and heads down a completely different hallway, not pausing to see if John is following him.

“Where are you going?” John calls after him.

“Detour,” Santino says shortly.

John lengthens his stride to try and catch up, but Santino hardly seems to notice or care if he’s accompanied or not, any more than he appears to notice that all the garish posters are pointing in the opposite direction. This isn’t a detour. He knows where he’s going. They pass another unremarkable entrance to one of the museum’s permanent exhibitions; John hesitates as the byline catches his eye.

_Works on loan from the personal collection of Giuseppe D’Antonio_.

He feels his hackles rise. Can’t put his finger on why, only that he’s convinced they can’t be here. That one of them is coming out of this room maimed.

“Santino,” he says, but Santino has left him behind. And in the background, the Investigator stands with her notebook open, pen in hand, expressionless. Awaiting the first signs of marital strife. She couldn’t have picked a worse moment. As ambushes go, John isn’t even slightly equipped to deal with this one.

He crosses the threshold into the exhibit.

There are no people in this part of the museum; the last of the evening stragglers are in other parts, lingering in the special exhibits and main attractions. This is something different. Something quiet. There’s no one else here.

Santino is sitting on a low velvet couch in front of a single, enormous painting that eats up the white space on an entire wall. John gives it the briefest of glances, disinterested; he knows what war looks like. He doesn’t need a painting to tell him. It spreads through his memories like black mold on white walls, eating into everything he touches. He carries it in his hands. His footsteps tread it into the ground. And he sees it in Santino’s eyes, sitting here in front of a picture that shrinks him, makes him somehow less than the man John knows.

Carefully, John sits on the couch next to Santino’s. He’s not sure how close to get. How safe it is to approach. He waits for Santino to break the silence.

“My father prided himself on his eye for art,” Santino says eventually. “In that, as in so many things, we disagreed. I always found his tastes outdated. He favoured nostalgia over new ideas, or anything experimental. His collection grew stagnant. Always the same scenes, same artists, same techniques, repeating themselves into infinity. No acknowledgement of the changing world.” He gives a humourless laugh. “But of course there was no point telling him this. Why would he trust my judgement? As he always said, I look at his collection and see…nothing. _Paint on canvas_. Art is wasted on a man like me.”

John doesn’t know what to say. He’s unbearably uncomfortable with the situation he’s been dropped into; there are too many ways he could cause disaster. Ruination. He’s good at that kind of thing. And he remembers Santino’s father.

Of all the horrifying things John’s seen in his life, there are few that got under his skin as much as the way Giuseppe D’Antonio treated his children.

He doesn’t speak.

Santino stares at the painting. There’s a yearning in his expression; something lost, something defeated. “I came here often while he was dying,” he says. “On the days when he was…worse. When the pain was very bad, he did not have the patience to endure my company. Only Gianna’s. But I felt that I should be with him somehow; if not in body, then in mind. And so I came here.”

“Did it help?”

Santino closes his eyes. “No. And now he is dead, and I have returned. _Why_? Why am I here?”

John reaches his limit. He can’t spend another second being carefully distant, barely present. He’s not a cold enough man to leave Santino on his own, and he’s glad of it. He doesn’t want to be someone who could turn his back on this.

He reaches over and takes one of Santino’s hands. Intertwines their fingers. It’s not in his nature to be gentle, but he gives it his best shot. “Because you’re mourning,” he says.

“I did love him.” Santino opens his eyes. “Even after everything. And every day I find myself wondering- what more could I have done? How is it that I failed him, so often, and so badly? And how did the years pass so quickly that he is gone, and I am still here? How did I run out of time?”

Five years felt like the blink of an eye. So short they could pass for a daydream, a half-remembered fantasy on the border of sleep and awareness. Where _did_ all that time go? John is already struggling to separate out memories from the blur; every time he dips a hand in, his fingertips come back black-stained, inky. He reaches too far and comes out the other side of five years. Back in the underworld. His brief glimpse of paradise just a temporary reprieve.

Santino’s thumb brushes the back of his hand. “I’ve hurt you,” he says. “Haven’t I? Brought back the pain, when you have worked so hard to shut it out. Forgive me.”

“It’s not your fault.” John isn’t sure what he’s referring to. He barely knows where he is; when he is. But he means it. “And you don’t need forgiveness. You’re not to blame.”

He never finds out what Santino would have said in response. In the distance, something rumbles. They look away from each other, over their shoulders and past the Investigator where she stands in the doorway with her notebook. A rumble seems to spread through the museum, shivering through its walls; for a moment John thinks, _earthquake_?

But some sounds are never forgotten, and there’s a part of him that knows. It acts before his conscious mind can catch up; he’s lunging, grabbing Santino by the shoulders and slamming him onto the polished floor, putting the velvet bench between them and the door and praying he’s guessed the direction correctly.

The second bomb is two rooms over. It detonates.

The world goes black.

John comes to with his ears ringing, his muscles alight with pain. Plaster dust coats him like a blanket of snow; he’s curled half-fetal, his back to the room, trapping Santino between his chest and the bench. He coughs hard. His lungs hardly feel functional. He can’t tell if anything’s broken; everything feels broken. His bones have the sturdiness of matchsticks.

Gingerly, John bushes himself up on one elbow.

The room is a ruin. Shards of glass and broken marble statue litter the floor; paintings hang half-ruined like worn down curtain drapes, caked with dust. One set of walls is just gone completely. Blown inwards, leaving ragged chunks of wood and metal behind. The whole building creaks as badly as John’s bones.

He feels Santino shiver against his chest. Alive. Awake. The relief is overwhelming.

“Santino,” John says. His voice sounds distant to his ears; he can’t tell how loudly he’s speaking. “Wake up. We need to go.”

There’s no response for the longest of moments, and then Santino lifts his head. White with plaster dust and shock, his hands shaking badly. But alive. “Why does this always happen to us? I go to your house to talk, someone shows up with a minigun. With a _tank_. I take you to a museum, there are bombs in the building. What next? An airstrike on our honeymoon?”

“We get a honeymoon?” John asks. It seems logical in the moment; the incredulous look Santino gives him suggests that he might disagree.

“You’re in shock, John,” he says. “Get off me. We need to find an exit.” They stand; it’s more of a process than normal. They use each other for balance, until the floor starts feeling less like it’s made of sand. Even upright, John keeps an arm around Santino’s waist. He can’t tell if either of them is seriously injured. But they’re standing. That’s a start.

“Can’t leave the way we came in.” The way they came in no longer exists; the frail wood and glass doors have been obliterated, their remnants embedded in the massive painting in the middle of the room. Strewing it with shrapnel. _Now_ it looks like a war scene. Now it looks real.

Santino stares at it with an expression John can’t begin to decipher. They don’t have time for this.

In a corner by the ruined doorway, a figure moves, groaning. The Investigator pulls herself upright to lean on one wall. Her glasses are shattered. She grips her notebook in a white-knuckled hand and stares at them both.

“Sorry,” Santino says to her. “This is a normal date night for us.” He starts laughing, the sound tinged with shock. John fights off the urge to shake him. Gently.

“Focus,” he says. “Exits. Where are they?”

“Left,” Santino says, indicating. He’s still laughing as John drags him forward. Walking with an arm around him is unwieldy but John doesn’t trust him not to fall. They’re both still talking too loudly, sounds muted, fumbling with the concept of balance. He glances back to see the Investigator struggling to her feet. She uses the wall to support herself. There’s no way he can manage her weight and Santino’s; it’s one or the other, and the choice is no choice at all. Still, he mouths an apology for leaving her behind.

Santino grows more stable as they exit the main museum space, stumbling into quiet hallways, strewn with debris but otherwise undamaged. John’s hearing returns slowly; he becomes aware of a distant, droning siren. Fire alarms. Evacuate the building.

“How’s your insurance policy?” he asks as Santino leads them down another hallway. There’s a very reassuring sign on one wall informing him that this way leads to an exit.

“Good,” Santino says. “Or I will be having my father’s lawyers killed. They should have planned for all possibilities.”

“Including a couple of bombs in the middle of your favourite museum?”

“Three. There were three bombs.”

“I didn’t hear the third.”

“No,” Santino agrees. “I think you were unconscious. From the blast. But I was not.” _You saved my life _isn’t something that needs to be said in the moment, but John can see the awareness every time Santino looks at him. Had they stayed seated on the benches, they’d now be sprouting a few hundred glass shards each. Had John been a little slower. Had he only moved to save himself, leaving Santino to the explosion.

The fire exit is a heavy door; it takes both of them to push open, stepping out into the cool night air. They’ve ended up around the side of the building, the open street in front of them. From the direction of the front, John hears sirens. From back the way they came, screams.

He smells smoke on the wind. The museum is burning.

John guides them both away from the disaster zone. The ground is still damp from the rain; the air is cool, blessedly thin. He breathes in deep and hopes it clears the dust from his lungs.

From the other side of the street, they both turn to look at the museum. The smoke is prominent now, rising grey and heavy above a building that looks set to collapse at any moment. A couple of helicopters hum overhead. Instinctively, John tugs Santino into the shelter of an overhang. They don’t quite cling, but they hold each other. It comes instinctively. Together, they’re a little more stable.

“I need to call the Continental,” Santino says. He digs in a pocket for his phone, shedding dust as he moves. Sweat has drawn lines through the dirt in his face. His suit is almost certainly ruined. John’s is worse. “Ares will be worried. So will Winston.”

“And Gianna.”

“Yeah. She’d worry about _you_. Me, not so much.” Santino stares down at the screen of his phone. It seems perfectly functional; he just hasn’t reached the stage of being able to do anything with it. John sympathises.

“Was this my fault?” He nods towards the building. “Feels like a repeat of last time.”

Santino shakes his head wearily. “No, John. How could they know you would visit? No. Only one of us has spent significant amounts of time there; only one of us used it as a temporary base of operations. For meetings, and deals, and moving product. But it was recent. Not many people knew. Of those, they were almost entirely Camorra.”

John breathes slowly, thinking. “So this is it, then. War.”

“Maybe.”

There’s movement at the base of the building, as someone limps out through the fire exit they left ajar. Even shell-shocked, the Investigator takes a moment to tidy herself, straightening up in a way that must hurt. She spots them almost immediately. Neither of them apologises as she approaches. Yes, they left her to die. If she works for the High Table, she understands the risks.

Nearby, but not so close as to stand with them, the Investigator wipes dust from her notebook.

“That was unpleasant,” she says without inflection. “And almost disastrous. The High Table wouldn’t have taken kindly to losing one of its own.”

“They bring it on themselves,” Santino tells her. “The longer they hold the will, the more restless the clans become. And the longer I am confined to the Continental, the less I can do to calm them. This is just the beginning, Signora. From now on, it all gets much worse. You know how the Camorra is. When we go to war, the whole world bleeds.”

She nods. “So your immediate desire is to leave behind the safety of the Continental and the ‘joy’ of your new marriage, and step into the middle of a turf war. Interesting response. And you.” She turns to John. The pen is out, the gaze unblinking even without her glasses. “What do you want?”

There are so many answers he could give. So many lies he can’t sell. Truths he won’t share. John would prefer not to answer at all. But silence isn’t an option, and sometimes the first thing that springs to mind is honest enough. “I don’t want him trying to handle this on his own.”

“Julius hasn’t been able to find the necessary Continental records yet,” she informs them. “They may no longer exist. If they ever did. Of the other documentation, I have seen it, and judged it to be truthful. But it does nothing at all to prove your case. And your witnesses are utterly biased. A sister, a bodyguard, an old friend. They have no value. There is no proof.”

The look Santino gives her is utterly contemptuous. _You waste my time with this now?_ He doesn’t say anything, but the implication is heavy in the way he draws himself up and moves free of John’s protective hold, standing alone. Gone is the pretense at charm. The forced civility of the last few days. He looks at her and openly considers her murder.

John doesn’t fill the gap in conversation. He waits. He’s good at it. And very much aware of the gun under his jacket; if the Investigator tries to leave, or to call someone, he’ll know before she begins to move. He’ll kill her if he has to. If Santino needs him to.

Across the street, the museum continues to burn. It would be a good place to hide a body.

“However,” the Investigator says. She looks between them. If she has any idea of exactly how precarious her situation is, she doesn’t show it. “If documentation was all the High Table required to make a decision here, they would have just asked for it instead of sending me. There are other factors. Behaviour. Emotion. Connection. And while the documents suggest that the two of you are liars, the rest…paints a very different picture.”

John doesn’t blink. He’s aware of Santino taking a sharp breath next to him, but neither of them speaks to betray surprise.

It worked, then. After everything.

“I’ve seen the camera footage of the hotel,” the Investigator informs them. “All of it.” She says it as though commenting on the weather. John feels a prickle of embarrassment under his skin. “And this evening, I saw…something. I don’t feel ready to pass judgment yet; there is context missing. But I also don’t believe that I will attain that context if you remain in the Continental.”

“So let us go,” John says.

She nods. “Yes. Yes, I think that would be best. Fine. Mister D’Antonio. Mister Wick. You are hereby free to go as you please; if you wish to travel, you may do so. But wherever you go, bear in mind that I will be going with you. I remain a member of your household until such a time as I am ready to make a final decision.”

Santino is quiet, considering. As if he has a choice; he pretends that he does. And then he nods. “Fine,” he says curtly. “We leave as soon as flights can be arranged. I hope you like Italy, Signora; you’re going to be spending a lot of time there.”

“The location doesn’t interest me in the slightest,” she says. “Only the secrets I might uncover there. Or not. We’ll see.”

It’s an ominous note to end the conversation on.


	8. The Blade Trapped Extended

“I had news about the museum.”

“Yeah?”

“Insurance will cover the damage, but…nothing can be salvaged. The collections are gone.”

“Are you okay with that?”

Santino laughs, his voice breaking part way through. “Ask me later. Right now I…_fuck_. I don’t care.”

John braces on one elbow, mouthing at the nape of Santino’s neck. Ignoring the warning ache in his ribs. Santino’s spine presses into his chest and abdomen; every movement jolts his side. He doesn’t care. Most of his attention is focused on maintaining a controlled rhythm, the shallow thrusts that make Santino shudder against him.

He digs his fingers into the skin of Santino’s thigh. Sweat makes his grip unwieldy. They’ve been at this for a while.

Santino drags an idle hand up the length of his own cock. He’s flushed all over, lying pliant on his side, leaning back into John’s hold. The energy of earlier has faded into exhausted relaxation. He takes it however John feels like giving, letting out the occasional subvocal groan when the angle rubs him right. They’re in no hurry. John’s stitches came out last night. They can’t play rough, but they can play. Carefully.

“I spoke to Gianna yesterday,” Santino says. He sounds dazed, lethargic. Unconcerned. “She grows more insistent.”

“She still wants us to go back?”

“_Yeah_. Yeah. To New York, to secure our territories.”

“It’s your choice.” John pushes in deeper, stopping where he is, buried half inside Santino’s unresisting body. He likes the heat, the pressure around his cock. The sense that he could end this all in seconds if he decided he was done, and Santino wouldn’t say a word. Or drag it out another interminable time, until his stamina runs low or boredom takes over. Right now, he gets whatever he wants. It’s very satisfying; he’s in no hurry to end it.

“Stay there,” Santino murmurs. “You feel good.”

“So do you.”

“Mm. And we are staying here as well; I enjoy being home. If Gianna wants a D’Antonio in New York, she can go.”

“It’s safer with her here,” John says. He presses his nose into Santino’s hairline, biting gently at his nape. Easing slowly further inside him, until he’s hilt deep and utterly lost, feeling Santino brace against the bedcovers to keep him in there. “We talked about this.”

“Maybe we need to talk again.”

“We don’t.”

“Marriage is about compromise, John. Cooperation.” Santino reaches a hand back, tangling it blind into John’s hair and tugging his head forward. The kiss is messy, slow, saliva smearing carelessly over lips and tongues.

“I’m cooperating,” John says against Santino’s mouth. He eases back most of the way, the head of his cock tugging at the edges of Santino’s muscles. Then shoves forward, rough, the slap of skin on skin as loud as his pained grunt. But it’s worth it. Santino snarls and digs a hand into the mattress to keep himself from being pushed away. He holds steady, muscles straining as John abandons all pretense at civility. Sets a merciless pace that tugs at the new scar tissue on his ribs, the pain a counterpoint to the pleasure that’s growing overwhelming.

They don’t talk; breathing is enough of a challenge. The brutality comes from nowhere, but he can feel it strip the languid indulgence from Santino’s muscles, leaving him to arch in John’s clumsy hold, swearing in ragged Italian as he’s forced down into the mattress, taken without mercy. And then silent as he comes, too out of breath to moan. John lasts a bit longer. He drags it out, making Santino feel every last second of his pleasure.

“How’s that for cooperation,” John says when conscious thought reasserts itself. He’s not generally the one to start pillow talk, but today is feeling exceptional. The ache in his overwrought muscles comes from nothing more challenging than an hour of drawn-out sex. His injuries are healing. Two weeks in Naples have worked all kinds of wonders. “I’d call it exemplary.”

“I am not agreeing to anything while you’re still inside me,” Santino says, muffled by the hand he drags through his tangled hair. Still, he sounds amused.

“Want me to-”

“Not yet. In a minute, maybe.”

“Sure.” John settles onto his side, his chest to Santino’s back, arms around his ribcage, slowly softening between his legs. It’s almost peaceful; they lean into each other and calm themselves in silence. Start thinking about the demands of the rest of the world. The sun will be up, or almost there. The household wakes in its own time, but they both rise early and always have.

There are no cameras in the bedrooms of Santino’s villa. No one to watch. No one to know what they do or don’t do to each other.

But they do. Even without the excuse of needing the footage, without justifications and outside pressure, they do. John tries not to think about it too closely.

“The Investigator wants to talk this morning,” Santino mutters. “She told me last night; I forgot to warn you. Sorry.”

“What about?”

“I didn’t ask, and she didn’t tell me.” _I really don’t care_, Santino’s tone says; he’s grown a lot less respectful towards the High Table’s representative over the last few weeks. Something to do with being on his home ground, or having her staying in his villa, under the protection of his name, his reputation. She takes his hospitality and responds with intrusion. Even five years out of the game, rusty in its nuances, John is stunned by the disrespect on show here. It’s hard to blame Santino for being resentful. This is his house.

John’s too, now. The idea is still sinking in.

“She’s been quiet this week.” He strokes Santino’s ribcage with an idle hand, thinking. “Guess she ran out of staff to interrogate.”

“I have too many things to do, and never enough time.”

“Speaking of which. Time to get up.” John presses an apologetic kiss to Santino’s shoulder before easing back on the bedsheets, sliding free from inside him. His regret is genuine. Here and now, with dawn just barely passing the horizon and the household still quiet, they have moments to themselves. To sleep, or talk, or fuck each other senseless; to linger in the memories of that life before retirement, which are rapidly growing clearer in John’s mind. He spent a lot of time in this villa. It is, he is finding, a place he remembers warmly.

He liked being here, back in the day. Strangely lovely artworks on the walls, dining outside in the summer, the crowded city held at bay by tall fences and expansive gardens; difficult jobs and kills he had to really work for. And Santino, who was always warmer within his own walls. A monster at rest.

He’s much the same now, for all the problems within the Camorra. He and John are the kindest they have ever been to each other; out of respect for John’s injuries and for Santino’s stress levels, they tread carefully. They play at romance. Share a bed and a home, dine together and commiserate on the absent dog, stuck in Charon’s care for a few more weeks before its paperwork lets them reunite in Naples. They avoid the difficult topics; the deaths that haunt them both, and the marker that Santino has stored away somewhere. Giuseppe D’Antonio’s will.

The reading is set for next week.

It feels like the calm before a storm. John is too relaxed; too _happy_, and those things never last for a man like him. Something will go wrong. All he can do is hope he’s ready for it.

They meet the Investigator in one of the various rooms Santino uses for business. This one is a little simpler than the rest; less polished wood and modern art, more utility. Couches and a coffee table, simple and undecorated. A room to deal with people far beneath his stature. He chooses where these meetings happen in his home, and his point is not a subtle one.

John sinks into the couch, grateful for the cups of coffee and pastries that have been set on the table not moments beforehand. The Investigator hasn’t arrived yet; this, too, is less than subtle. Santino sends for her when he’s good and ready, which tends to be after his first cup of coffee. In this, John supports him completely.

When she is shown in, she carries the usual black notebook and fountain pen. Ares closes the door behind her, mouth tight with anger. She glares at John. He barely notices anymore.

“Good morning,” the Investigator says. She sits opposite them, as she always does. The sharp-edged glasses are back, and if the attack on the museum troubles her at all, she doesn’t show it. “How is the marriage?”

“Fine,” Santino says. “Very happy.”

“Blissful,” John says when she stares at him in turn. It comes out slightly defensive; he’s not even lying that much.

The sound of a fountain pen uncapping is starting to do worrying things to John’s nerves. He twitches as she flips to a new page of her notebook. “You spend most of the day apart, I’ve found.”

“John and I have work to do,” Santino says. “Not in the same place. It has always been this way.”

“But you do sleep together?”

“Among other things.”

John throws Santino a look of horror. Amused, Santino squeezes his knee.

“But perhaps we should discuss something else,” he says. “My husband is shy about these matters.”

The Investigator doesn’t smile. “I have questions about your plans, for both the present and the future. Your return to Naples has stabilised some of the louder dissidents, for now. I judge the peace to be temporary. How do you intend to proceed?”

“That is not relevant,” Santino says. “How I handle the other clans is my own business, and nothing to do with your investigation.”

“And yet, you sit here with John Wick at your side. One of, if not the most famous assassin in the world. Surely your husband features somewhere in your plans. I understand he was retired; was that set aside when he accepted your proposal?”

_It wasn’t mentioned at all_, John thinks. _It still hasn’t been_. But it’s been so easy to ignore. He’s had so little free time in the last two weeks. His days fill up with tasks, meetings, planning, and his nights belong to Santino.

They haven’t talked about it.

“I am aware of the things John was looking for when he retired,” Santino says. “More aware than you are, I promise. I supported him then; I still do. He will never again work as he did under the Tarasovs. The constant risks, never resting, never healing; that will not happen. First and foremost, he is my husband.”

It’s an elegant way of promising very little. John shrugs as the Investigator turns to him. He has nothing to add. Her questions are his as well, but this is not the place to raise them.

“I didn’t want to come back,” he says. “Far as I’m concerned, I’m still not really back. But anyone who thinks I’ll stand aside and watch someone attack Santino…they’re making a mistake.”

“That’s sweet of you,” Santino murmurs.

“I’m not sure that answers the question,” the Investigator says. “But I’ll accept it for the moment; no doubt time will reveal the truth. Your father’s will is being read next week, I understand?”

“Yeah.”

“That will be interesting.”

“What is your point?”

“The Bowery King is laying claim to some of your family’s territories in New York,” the Investigator says expressionlessly. “There have been eleven deaths so far. Your soldiers, not his.”

Santino shrugs. “He is a rat. He gnaws at the edges, but we will poison him eventually. I am not concerned.”

“Your sister feels otherwise.”

“She often does.”

“She believes you should have stayed in New York to maintain a presence and control the situation.”

“Yes,” Santino says shortly. “We have discussed it. I disagree with her assessment.”

“You don’t think it would have been wiser?” the Investigator asks. “If both of you retreat to the center of your power base, it might easily be perceived as weakness. At the very least, you sacrifice territories you might maintain if you-”

“_Signora._” Santino’s tone actually silences her. It startles John; he glances over warily, tensing. Santino’s expression is twisted with fury, barely restrained. He stands. “I am forced to accept your presence in my household. And because I have no choice in the matter, I also accept your intrusion, and your unwanted comments about my marriage. About my husband. I cannot stop these things, and so I allow them. For now. But make no mistake; you do not _ever_ pass judgement on how I choose to rule the Camorra.” He leaves the room without another word, slamming the door behind him.

John doesn’t say anything. The Investigator stares at the door, thoughtful. She’s not writing.

“Your husband has a temper,” she says eventually. “How do you manage that?”

_I don’t_, John thinks honestly. _It’s not aimed at me; he’s angry at his father, his sister, himself. Not me. And when he’s angry, I wait. The storm always calms. _

_He doesn’t like being angry. He sees what it did to his dad._

“Patience,” John says.

“That’s all?”

“Yes.”

“And you,” says the Investigator. “I understand that you’re quite difficult to anger, but you do have a breaking point. Eighty people sacrificed to your rage.”

“It was justified.”

“That doesn’t interest me at the moment. I want to know how your husband manages your temper.”

“He…” _Doesn’t,_ John thinks. _No one does. Not even me. _He’s wary of the question, and wary of thinking on it too closely. “He’s never hurt me in the way Iosef Tarasov hurt me.”

“You don’t believe he’s capable of betraying you?” the Investigator asks. Her skepticism cuts. It touches too close to exposed nerves. “Your husband is Santino D’Antonio; lord of the Camorra. Betrayal is just one tool at his disposal. I can confidently cite three examples of treachery on his part within the last year, right now. Would you like to hear them?”

“No. Thank you.” For all his attempts to avoid it, John finds himself thinking about the grenade launcher in Santino’s car. The marker. Both brought to John’s home for a very specific purpose. Their use only averted by bad timing, and the High Table’s interference. How differently might things have gone otherwise?

“Then answer the question.”

“I can’t,” John says. “I’ve never been angry with him. Annoyed, sure. Frustrated. Nothing I can’t just walk off. I’d like to think we can talk most things through; he respects me enough to listen.” In some cases, that’s true. But still John finds his thoughts drifting back to that grenade launcher. It doesn’t sit easy with him. No one brings that thing to a pleasant conversation, or a catch up with an old flame. A reunion with a friend suffering recent bereavements and needing support. It shouldn’t be necessary. Bringing it at all…says a lot.

“I see,” the Investigator says. “Thank you for your honesty.”

“I’m not sure it was the answer you’re looking for.”

“I am looking for the truth, Mister Wick. And I believe that you just gave it to me, whether you intended to or not.”

The conversation sticks with John long after the Investigator tells him he has permission to leave the room that technically belongs to him now.

He has things to occupy himself with; boredom is a distant, wistful concept in these parts. The subterranean household armoury is becoming his main haunt. He gets the sense that everyone around is genuinely happy to have him in there. Years of neglect, an absent master, are starting to show. A new grenade launcher does not secure a villa.

The guard shifts are another ongoing project he seems to have brought on himself. One curious enquiry about patrols and patterns, and the whole mess was dropped on his lap with a distressing amount of gratitude. _Anything you say, Mister Wick. We can make changes. Tell us what to do_.

No one seems to remember the five years of retirement. John does; he has a half-healed wound from a broken bottle that tells him just how slow he’s gotten. Nobody should be looking to him for advice. And still, the legend lingers. The goddamn Boogeyman walks in this lovely old villa, and every single security-related question seems to be finding its way to him.

Santino is less than helpful. A suggestion about upgrading the gate staff’s rifles is met with a blank look, and a reminder that John has full access to the bank accounts, personal and otherwise. He’s more than welcome to order whatever weapons he likes. This is his money now.

_That’s just what you get for trying to make sure your husband is safe while he’s sleeping,_ John thinks wryly, pulling out a rack of switchblades. He can already spot damage on the handles of several. Everything in here can be drawn on for jobs, and the care hasn’t kept up. Like hell is he leaving any of his own weapons in with the rest. If he’d known about the state of the armoury beforehand, he’d be forcing both D’Antonio heirs to stay in Rome’s Continental until he could be sure their homes were actually livable. Survivable. Defended.

“So, tell me, John. Are we all to be murdered in our beds?”

John doesn’t look up from the switchblades. Still, he feels himself smile. “Not with most of these, you won’t.”

“Bad news, I take it,” Santino says.

“I…yeah. Have you considered hiring a professional for this?”

“Why?” Santino asks. “I’m looking at one right now.”

“No,” John tells him. “You’re looking at a _retired_ assassin, five years out of the game. I haven’t kept up with the new models. I don’t know what people are using, or what might get used against us. All I can tell you is that you’re going to need to replace a lot of equipment, and your ammunition stores are…concerning. Did you just forget this house existed?”

Santino leans on a nearby cabinet, ignoring the dust that drifts across his light grey suit. “I haven’t been back here in three years. And before that, I was often away.”

“I thought it was your home.”

“It was,” Santino agrees. “But my father was spreading his influence across new territories, and whether he would admit it or not, he needed help. I tired of the flight from Napoli to New York. It was easier just to live there.”

It’s strange to picture Santino becoming so detached from the place John knew him best in. The place he always seemed happiest. “Did you like New York?” John asks.

Santino shrugs. “I liked the culture. The art. So experimental, so innovative. And the city- so much change! It was something I always appreciated.”

John pulls what looks to be one of the worst blades out from the rack. The metal is scratched up, dented. Blunt along the edges. The point is completely broken off. He’s not sure he’d want to trust his life to it in a close-quarters fight.

“Look at this,” he mutters. “You feel safe with this around?”

“John,” Santino says patiently. “You once killed three men with a pencil.”

“It was _sharpened_.”

“You’re missing my point.”

“You’re ignoring mine.”

Santino laughs. “And so ends the honeymoon period,” he says. “Our first argument as a married couple; we fight over the state of my armoury. John. Replace whatever you need. Replace everything if it will help you sleep at night; I really don’t care. In this, there is no one I trust more in the whole world.”

John sets the knife on a nearby bench. He refuses to put it back with the rest. “The Investigator was asking about that, after you…left.”

“My household inventory? My trust for you? Can you possibly be less specific?”

“How we deal with arguments.”

“My god,” Santino says. He actually rolls his eyes. “What is this, a High Table investigation or therapy? Who cares? We have not killed each other yet.”

“I’ve definitely considered it,” John says lightly. It does seem a lot less serious in hindsight, here with Santino watching him, laughing over a question he clearly considers ludicrous. The danger is downplayed, the grenade launcher relegated to immateriality. It’s not like Santino ever actually used it against him. Yes, he brought it with him. Maybe what actually matters is what he ended up doing. Saving John’s life, for starters. Putting himself through this investigation, when it didn’t need to involve him at all.

“If you ever decided to kill me, I would die,” Santino says. “I could drag it out, maybe. Put a price on your head like Viggo did. Buy myself a few days. But eventually you would fight your way through to me, and then I would die. There. The argument is resolved.”

“I’m going to try to avoid that situation.”

“For my sake, I hope so.”

The grenade launcher can be forgiven, John decides, pulling another switchblade out from the rack. This one is caked with a powdery substance, more brown than red where blade meets hilt. He can guess what it is. And it’s depressing.

“She wanted to know how I deal with you,” he says, dropping the knife on the bench with the first, trying not to touch it more than he needs to. Moving back to the others. “Apparently, you have a temper.”

“Who, me?” Santino asks, mock offended, and John finds himself laughing along.

“Right,” he says. “Who knew?”

They smile at each other; both lingering on memories of all the times Santino’s infamous D’Antonio temper has made an appearance. As if he isn’t very well known for acts of almost unbelievable brutality in response to slights, small or otherwise. This man reacts to insults with massacres, but rarely immediately after. Days, weeks, months later. Never when expected. His grudges are the stuff of legend.

“I remember,” Santino says abruptly. “The first time I looked at you and did not just see a borrowed assassin, or a family friend, I was angry. I had spent months planning a takeover; a drug smuggling ring, I think? Nigerians.”

“I remember.”

“You helped,” Santino says. Lost in the memory, he comes to stand at the bench John is starting to fill with unsatisfactory switchblades. The rack is emptying out. “The killing blow, that was yours. But I did the planning, the preparation, the research. And then Gianna swooped in like the vulture she is, and claimed the success as her own. Over a technicality. But my father heard only her, as he always did, and my work didn’t matter at all. I was…so angry. You suffered the worst of it.”

“I didn’t suffer,” John says. “You just needed someone to listen.”

Santino has never enjoyed being angry. The grudges that fester like untreated wounds, the outbursts and the retaliatory violence; he hates it. More to his liking is the planned and well-executed massacre of rival gangs and opponents. The smug triumph. Not the blinding rage. He always hates himself a little more in the aftermath of his own anger.

“My guards all knew to leave me alone in that mood,” Santino muses. “But you didn’t care. You came to me and asked me if I was alright. You _apologised_, as if it was your fault that my sister had done what she always does. I told you to get out. But you wouldn’t.”

John remembers a younger man, helpless and frustrated by it, crushed by his unending inability to match a sister eight years his senior and in his eyes far superior. It wasn’t fair; the underworld never is, but this was less fair than most things John has seen. It heralded the start of his understanding. Of finally coming to terms with the D’Antonio hierarchy.

“You sat next to me,” Santino says. “And you told me…‘_Talk_’. Just that. Never more words than you need, and it was what I needed. So I talked. About my family, my failures. My anger. You took it all, though none of it was your fault. And when I ran out of that anger, you looked at me and told me that you were impressed with what I’d done. Then, you left. And I discovered two things.”

He accepts the switchblade John hands him without words, inspecting it with experienced hands. He knows what he’s looking for, despite his claims at indifference. Without prompting, he discovers the flaw in the locking mechanism which should allow the blade to fold neatly back into its handle. A jam. The blade is trapped extended. Never allowed to rest.

“First,” Santino says, “I discovered that I was no longer angry. You took that with you and left me in peace.” He drops the broken blade onto the pile John is forming. “Second, I discovered that I craved your company in ways I could barely put words to. Your stillness. Your focus. Your patience. There is no one else who does those things in the same way you do, John, and the moment I realised that, I understood that I could be truly myself in your presence.”

He rests a hand on the rack of switchblades, gently pushing it closed. _Pay attention only to me now_, is implied as he steps into John’s space.

“I have never forgotten that,” Santino says quietly. “Five years without you, and I survived. I could still survive if you were to leave. But it would not be…” He stops, looking for a word that isn’t coming to him, in any language. John can’t fill in the blanks; he’s lost himself, fumbling to grasp what feels like a gift, except that the shape of it confuses him. And he’s not sure what to give back in return.

“I’m not leaving any time soon,” he says. It’s not ideal, but it seems to work anyway. Some of the tension bleeds out of Santino’s shoulders.

“No,” he says. “And it is good to have you back. Whatever the cost.”

The rack digs into John’s spine, a contrast to Santino’s heat against his thighs, his chest, his mouth. It’s a leisurely kiss, warmth without intent. No promises, and no suggestion of taking it further than where they are now. No cameras to record the curve of John’s hand around the back of Santino’s neck, or way Santino is feeling indulgent enough to allow him tenderness. No bites. No bruises. Surrounded by instruments of death and mutilation, they kiss each other breathless. John loses time. Loses focus on all things but Santino’s quickened pulse against his fingertips.

He will remember this. However things turn out, this can’t be something he forgets.

When Santino pulls back, it’s reluctant. “I,” he says, and stops to take a deeper breath. “God, I am too old for this kind of thing. I have a meeting to get to.”

“I’m not stopping you.” Santino’s arms are clasped loosely around John’s ribs, hands rubbing over his back. John strokes his neck.

“I am probably late anyway,” Santino says. It doesn’t appear to bother him. “Your fault.”

“You’re the one who came down here.”

“Is it a crime, to want to see my husband?”

“You’ve seen him,” John says, amused. “And now he’s telling you to go to your meeting. Who is it?”

“Just family,” Santino says. “Cousins; loyal. They will not take offense if I am delayed.” His hands grow purposeful where they linger on John’s back, slipping under his t-shirt to tickle the bones of his spine. Rucking the hem up to rib level. Santino’s expression suggests that he’s seriously considering pulling the whole thing off.

John kisses his cheek. “You want to do that, I won’t stop you. But you’re going to be late.”

“Gianna can host,” Santino says slowly. He pushes John’s shirt higher, until John tugs it over his head and drops it onto the nearby bench. Santino’s hands move to his bare chest, rubbing over his abdomen, careful with the new scarring on his ribs. He drags his palms over John’s nipples, and now they’re both breathing heavily. “She needs something to distract her. And I have other things on my mind.”

“Such as?”

“You.” Santino drops a hand to John’s belt, stroking the buckle with a fingertip. And then lower, until he finds the outline of John’s cock through the denim, half-hard and already sensitive. John swallows. He knows Santino hears it.

“I think,” Santino says, rubbing his palm over John’s cock, “That I would enjoy the meeting more with the taste of you on my tongue. Don’t you agree?”

“That sounds…” John looks for words, utterly distracted by the press of Santino’s palm, the open invitation to grind up against it. He’s feeling exposed, shirtless against Santino’s beautiful clothes, the buttons of the other man’s waistcoat cold against his stomach. Losing those layers would take longer than they have. Only one of them will be naked here. The thought cracks what’s left of his concentration.

Someone knocks very purposefully on the armoury door. John stiffens, glancing over Santino’s shoulder.

It’s ajar; he never closed it in the first place, and Santino clearly didn’t bother. Ares stands in the doorway with an exasperated expression.

_I would apologise for ruining the moment, _she signs. _But I’m not sorry._

“Ares,” John mutters. Santino steps back with a distressing amount of dignity, calm when he turns in her direction.

“I assume this is urgent?”

_Your cousins called. They say there’s a situation. Serious._

Santino curses quietly. He’s already pulling himself back together, tugging his tie straight, focusing. Wordless, John grabs his shirt from the bench. He takes a couple of deep breaths to steady himself. It’s all he really needs. Professionalism takes the wheel.

“What’s the situation?” he asks, putting the shirt back on.

_There was an attack. We’re waiting for updates. Boss?_

“On my way,” Santino says.

“Anything I can do?” The question is a dangerous one, but with the Investigator’s interview fresh in his mind, John asks it anyway. He suddenly finds he very much wants to know. The rush of adrenaline isn’t just the aftermath of their stolen moment.

Santino gives him a distracted look, patting him on one shoulder. “I can handle it. Ares, fill me in on the way. Has my sister been told?” He’s gone at a brisk walk, his footsteps heavy on the stairs up to ground level. John stays behind in the dusty underground room, the racks of weapons all around him. He breathes in the smell of metal, oil, damp. There’s work to do here; he should get back to it.

And still he can’t crush the anxiety that lodges in his gut.

John leaves the armoury behind half an hour later, closing and locking the door in his wake. He’s still on edge; the further he gets into the ill-maintained weaponry, the less comfortable he feels. And above ground, the house is too quiet. There should be movement; guards and visitors, extended D’Antonio family and other Camorra members stopping by to report or just catch up with their bosses. A security nightmare, but it always has been. And the guards are more careful since John started asking questions.

He’s of a mind to walk the perimeter, check the weaker points and the new security cameras, the motion sensors in the garden. Patrols are something he’s working into his routine; they’ll be easier when the dog arrives, giving him an unobtrusive excuse to walk wherever he wants. He’s looking forward to it. And doing his best not to call Charon every day for updates.

As he passes the ground floor, John hears voices raised in anger. He doesn’t roll his eyes; it’s an effort. Gianna is safest here until the will reading, but cabin fever is starting to spread. She cannot coexist with her brother. They’re better off living in different countries.

John climbs the stairs to the second floor, following the sounds of Gianna’s fury.

“-if we can pretend to negotiate, we buy ourselves a couple of days. And by the time they meet us, I will have hostages; I know where the lieutenants send their children to school. We play along until we are ready to strike. It’s an elegant solution, and if you would just _calm down and listen_-”

“They attacked first, Gianna. We don’t have days to wait, when all of Napoli is watching our every move. We need to strike back. Save your elegance for diplomatic missions; I will respond to the war.”

“And your arrogance risks lives we can’t spare! What if you fail? Tell me that, Santino, what then? Who will look weak then? We take the hostages. Make contact with the Contini and tell them we want to talk. Buy Cassian the time he needs to arrange a kidnapping. And _then_, when we have the upper hand, we assert our power. What will it be? A clever knife to the back, or a mindless blunt object to the face?”

A door opens violently, slamming into the wall behind it. Gianna storms down the hallway, in rapid conversation with Cassian and a couple of her other guards. They’re engrossed, distracted; none of them spot John on the stairs. He doesn’t call them back.

The jitters are worsening. This isn’t like the other situations they’ve faced so far. This feels like a turning point.

He climbs the rest of the stairs, stepping into the room Gianna just left. A long table takes up most of the space, strewn with various maps. There are guards grouped around laptops, muttering, gesturing. Ares is paging through a handful of files; photographs spill over the table. In the middle of the room, Santino stares down at his phone, tense with rage.

“Are your cousins alright?” John asks. Ares looks up at him, sneering. Santino doesn’t.

“We don’t know,” he says tersely. “They have stopped responding. Almost certainly they are dead, but it may be that the Contini have taken hostages of their own.”

“That’s not a small clan.”

“Second in power, at one point. Maybe still. It has been difficult to keep track of the structure from New York, when changes are so frequent. And Gianna has not been paying attention; she focuses on higher things while the ground grows shaky beneath her.”

John glances down at the map. The markings that cover it mean nothing to him; it’s a code he doesn’t know, and there are few things he hates more. He’ll have to learn it.

“What are you planning?”

Santino sets his phone down on the table. He taps his fingers on the blank screen momentarily, before coming to a decision.

“I am not waiting,” he announces. “Francesca and Marco may be alive right now; I doubt they will be by the time Gianna has her own hostages. No, I will not wait. Ares- you take your people to the docks where they attacked us. The shipment from the Ivory Coast, you know it. No doubt even now they are robbing us. Secure the product, kill anyone you don’t recognise. Question them first; I want my family back. For a reunion or a funeral, I want them back.”

_Copy that_, Ares signs.

“But it will not be enough.” Santino stares down at the map. His eyes are very cold. “We need to prove a point. This is my city, and I have come home. No more diplomacy. No more patience. Let the gutters run with blood, until the clans remember who rules them.” He looks up.

He looks at John.

“They have a warehouse in Poggioreale,” he says as John starts shaking his head. “In the industrial area. A hub for smuggled goods, drugs, meetings. The contents do not interest me at all. But anyone inside that warehouse dies, tonight. And the building burns. Let the whole city see the smoke and know that I am no longer playing nicely.”

The way he says it is not a request. Not optional; this is an order. And no one in that room is in any doubt as to who is on the receiving end. Santino’s eyes don’t leave John’s face for a second.

“Don’t,” John says very quietly. “You were doing so well.”

“Yes,” Santino agrees. “And now I am forced to do something I regret. I’m sorry. Truly, John, I don’t want to do this. But the choice is out of my hands. If you want someone to blame, blame the Contini. I will have a car take you most of the way there. You are familiar with my armoury, of course; take anything that pleases you.”

“Don’t do this.”

“_Go,_ John,” Santino says. “Get it done. There is no one else who can.” He turns away, to the group of guards forming around Ares, watching her hands shape out orders. Anyone who looks John’s way quickly decides not to. Whatever they see, it scares them.

It should.

In the bedroom, John changes into black. The suit, the shirt, the tie. Holsters, a bag for the rifle he hasn’t yet used in active combat. Handguns; Glocks. A shotgun his fingers tingle to touch, which he considers for a moment before setting back down for another day. Knives; sharp, shining. Garotte wire. All spoils of a daytrip to Rome’s sommelier last week, for vague reasons John couldn’t place. A sense of “just in case”. A moment like this one.

He combs his hair back in the bathroom, stepping out and hesitating at the bag waiting for him on the bed. Things change quickly; it shouldn’t come as a surprise. And still he touches the bedspread with his fingertips and wishes he could go back to the morning. It was never going to last, and still he believed. Trusted. But of course, there were no promises made. And now he’s going back to war. The hellhound is coming home.

And he is so, so angry.

The driver is a man he recognises; Enrico, bearded and reticent, one of the old guard. As John climbs into the passenger seat, he nods behind them. John turns. Seeing the large black crate on the back seat, he allows himself a humourless smile.

“Grenade launcher, huh,” he says. “The boss wants this messy.”

Enrico nods once. His English isn’t great, and family drama isn’t his problem. He’s driven John to countless imminent massacres over the years. They know absolutely nothing about each other. It’s nice, in a way. Simple. Everyone knows their place, and no one steps out of line.

They stop around the corner from the warehouse in question. John tells Enrico to go for a drive. Soak some scenery. Come back in twenty minutes. He slips the rifle out of its bag, leaving the grenade launcher behind for the moment. He’ll want it for the final, personal touch, but it’s unwieldy to carry when he might need to run.

The car slips silently around a corner, headlights off. John makes for the warehouse.

There are two guards outside, wandering a lazy perimeter, the light from their cigarettes making useful targets. John slinks up behind the first, looping garotte wire under his jaw and pulling tight, kicking the backs of the man’s knees. He falls, his windpipe blocked, legs flailing. John waits out the struggles. Snaps the man’s neck as he slips into unconsciousness, and moves on to the second. He startles this one, shutting down a cry for help with the blade of his hand to the other man’s throat. A punch to the solar plexus. Another broken neck.

The blood is pounding in his ears, but his hands are steady. John unholsters the first of his new Glocks and steps through the open door to the warehouse.

He’s unnoticed. The place is industrial, bare-bones; concrete floors and high ceilings, exposed metal beams. Shipping containers and wooden crates of illicit liquor stacked in aisles, forklifts scattered between them. Workers with guns, stacking cocaine like sacks of flour. A handful of mobsters in sharp suits, standing around a table and laughing. Victory; it’s written in the swaggers. Youngsters, all of them, men and women in their twenties sent to prove their worth by tweaking the noses of the ruling clan. So assured. So slow on the draw when the bodies start falling.

Time becomes a hazy concept. People die; John keeps a distant count in the back of his head, not so much for the bragging rights as because it’s usually asked of him by his masters. Viggo has always liked to know the number. It gives him something to brag about at poker nights with cartel bosses. John burns ammo and keeps count.

He weaves between the shipping containers, but the cover is hardly necessary. Most of the staff here aren’t marksmen, and the gangsters favour style over aim. By the time they realise they need to be scared, half their number are dead. But then, this isn’t the Contini stronghold; just an outpost for the goods to pass through, and the guards wear a family name for protection instead of body armour. That’s stupid thinking. John’s had to beat it out of the D’Antonio guards.

The last four are clustered around a half-open open shipping container; as John approaches, one of them turns, gun drawn, towards whatever’s inside. He’s purposeful, trusting in the other three to provide distraction. John shoots him first. He’s long since run out of ammunition for his Glocks, but the rifle sings as sweetly as he was promised it would, though the mess it makes is…significant.

In the silence that follows it, John hears a muffled sound from the shipping container. He reloads the rifle. Peers around the half-open door.

The woman is bound hand and foot with packing tape, her hair matted, shouting through a tape gag. Her nose has bled down her cheeks and chin, only somewhat diluted by tears. Her eyes, though. She has the family storm-grey.

“Francesca D’Antonio?” John suggests.

She jerks her head. He steps into the container and rips her gag loose.

“Did my family send you?” she asks. In Italian, and John responds with the same.

“Yeah. Where’s…” John fumbles for the other cousin’s name. He can’t remember. But Francesca is already shaking her head, offering her hands for him to cut loose. John is careful; he can see the shaking, the winces, the unnatural angle that suggests a broken arm.

“They killed my husband,” she says. “On the docks. I watched them. He was not worth as much; I have the D’Antonio blood, and he was just an in-law.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I should have been next,” she tells him as her legs are freed. “Raped, killed, then cut to pieces and left on display in the tourist spots, as a message. They were not afraid of us.”

“I think that’s going to change,” John says. He helps her to her feet, but she doesn’t want assistance beyond that. Together, they step back out into the warehouse. It’s very quiet. Blood drips gently down from the second floor, where a body on the metal staircase grows cold.

_Twenty-seven_, John thinks out of habit. _Final number_.

“Enrico should be outside by now,” he says. “If you’re ready to leave.”

Francesca doesn’t move. She stands in the middle of the warehouse, turning slowly, staring at the bodies. “Are you alone?”

“Yeah.”

“Just you? You did this?”

John doesn’t answer. The silence speaks for itself. Finally, Francesca looks at him.

“You’re him,” she says blankly. “Aren’t you? _John Wick_. People talked about you, but I thought…gossip. Exaggeration. They said my cousin married the reaper himself, and I didn’t believe it.” She turns away, back to the blood on the concrete floor, the arterial sprays across shipping containers and packages of cocaine. The bullets embedded in flesh and metal. The smell of the murder scene.

John finds himself thinking longingly of the grenade launcher. Starting fires, cleansing the ground, the mess he always leaves behind. If it all burns away, it might as well have not existed. And maybe he won’t have to think about it.

“Let’s go,” he says shortly, heading for the exit. Francesca follows several steps behind, cradling her broken arm. She doesn’t want to get too close. That’s for the best.

He leaves her to climb into the car with Enrico, tugging the grenade launcher from its protective casing, loading it and returning to the warehouse. Metal isn’t flammable, and shipping containers won’t burn. The cocaine is a different story. As are the crates of illicit liquor, the smuggled vehicles and laundered money. They burn nicely. The rest of the building catches on soon enough.

John returns to the car, feeling like he’s been set alight in turn. His skin feels more sensitive, his muscles more responsive. Excess adrenaline stings like hot steel wire in his veins. He swallows and tastes smoke. Blood. A challenge. A job.

For one dangerous moment, he considers asking Enrico to take him to the docks. To the shipment from the Ivory Coast, where Ares might still be leading an attack on another Contini squad. There might still be some work to do. He wouldn’t mind. He’s ready for it.

But Francesca is waiting in the passenger seat with a broken arm and a wedding ring that will hurt her every time she looks at it; she’s a widow now, with a funeral to plan. She’ll need a doctor. Maybe a priest, or a family member to talk to. Empathy, from someone who still remembers what that feels like.

John slides into the back seat. “Home,” he says to Enrico. “We’re done here.”

There are lights on at the front of the villa; as the car slips into the driveway, John finds himself thinking back to a similar night, just over two weeks ago. Fleeing the burning ruins of his house, taking refuge with someone he had no reason to trust, and no choice but to do so. He spots Ares first, standing with a group of her staff, clearly just arrived. A car next to them, the back doors open to reveal a sheet-wrapped body stretched out on the seat. He sees the moment Francesca notices it. She doesn’t make a sound.

John gets out of the car first. Ares moves to meet him; her smile is bitter, and her hands are spiteful.

_Enjoy your evening_? she signs. John considers telling her to go fuck herself. He’s better than that, normally. Above her little games. But the evening is dragging on, and the tattered remnants of civilisation are falling away from him like shedding snake skin. He wouldn’t mind starting a fight with her. Right here, in front of the house, with the guards to watch. Whatever problem she has with him, maybe now is the time to address it.

Behind him, the passenger door opens. John makes himself turn away, holding it open so Francesca can get out without jolting her arm.

Ares loses the smile. She is abruptly professional. _Is that who I think it is?_

Francesca gives her hands a tired, uncomprehending look. She doesn’t understand, then. That makes sense if Santino hasn’t spent much time at home over the last five years. Ares isn’t known in these parts.

Her master appears in the doorway. The light from inside spills out over his shoulders, casting shadows on his face. And still his astonishment is clear. “Francesca? _Grazie a Dio_, I thought you were dead.”

“Santino,” she says. “They killed my husband.”

“I know. I am so sorry.” Santino meets her out on the gravel, hugging her. He’s careful with the broken arm. “Come inside. Your mother is here, and there is a doctor. You need to rest. Tomorrow, we can talk about Marco. And where we go next.”

“To war,” Francesca says. “Where else? This is what your years of neglect have caused. The other clans don’t fear us.”

“They will. But we can discuss this in the morning, yes? Go and tell your mother she still has a daughter; she’s in the first room on the left. We all assumed the worst. _I_ assumed the worst.” Santino steps back, letting Francesca enter the house alone. His eyes linger on the sheet-wrapped body Ares and her guards are lifting from the vehicle.

There’s no one John wants to see less, but he’s going to have to pass to enter the house. He’s growing more aware of the stinging, overstrained muscles, the ache in his trigger finger, his neck. Bruises, scrapes. No bullet wounds. His injured ribs have a sharp, nasty ache to them. He wonders if he’s torn the scarring back open. If he’ll need more stitches. If he should be more grateful that, for once, he wasn’t shot.

His clothes are sticky with blood; the black hides most of it. He doubts it’ll wash out. But he was always buying new clothes, back in the day. All part of the job.

Santino turns to look at him as John approaches the house. He knows better than to smile. John finds himself biting down hard on the dutiful, habit-driven instinct that almost has him reciting, _I killed twenty-seven_. He’s not on a contract anymore. He doesn’t have to do that.

He moves to brush past Santino, stopped by a light hand on his shoulder.

“Is it done?” Santino asks.

John looks at him blankly. There are so many things he’d like to say. But they wouldn’t come out the way he feels them, and though his hands twitch at the thought of expressing himself in a more violent way, he curbs the instinct. He’s more than the rage. More than the Boogeyman. He has to be, or he has nothing left.

“_Sì, Signor D’Antonio,_” he says, and walks away.


	9. Eulogy

“Nice day for it,” Cassian says, glancing up at the cloudless sky. “No one wants rain at a funeral.”

“It rained on…” John doesn’t finish his sentence. He’s not sure why he started it in the first place. Leaning on the balcony at his side, Cassian gives him a pitying look.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says. “It rained on Giuseppe’s as well; Gianna almost had a meltdown. She said it was over her makeup. It wasn’t.”

“Guess they’re getting pretty good at planning funerals.”

Cassian shrugs. “Fourth one this year. It’s been rough.”

“I didn’t know. All relatives?”

“Yeah. At this rate, they’re going to run out of family to bury.”

In the garden below, people are getting ready to head to the church. Mourners, well-wishers, neighbours, Camorra soldiers, bunches of flowers and gifts, mountains of food. Every person and offering checked over by the guards, with John standing grimly behind them. Underworld custom says it’s taboo to attack a funeral. He’s never put much faith in that. Better safe than sorry, with the Camorra in its current state. A few hurt feelings are a small price to pay to avoid disaster.

Francesca stands below with her parents and Marco’s, her arm in a cast, stitches holding her scalp closed. At her request, the family is gathering at Santino’s villa instead of her own home. She glances up at John and gives him a nod.

“She wanted the wake to be here,” Cassian says.

“Guess she doesn’t want to have to wash all the dishes afterwards.”

Cassian gives a dry laugh. “Yeah. And the only place she feels safe right now is in your house.”

He’s barely spoken to Francesca since meeting her, aside from expressing the necessary condolences. “No one should feel safe around me.”

“You’re the one who burned down a warehouse full of Contini and brought her home alive.”

“I didn’t know she was there.”

“And if you had,” Cassian says, “you’d have gone in even faster. You did a good thing, John. Take a moment to enjoy it. People like us don’t get that too often.”

Santino and Gianna move through the crowd, playing the gracious hosts. They do that well, as long as they don’t have to interact. Gianna hasn’t forgiven Santino for blatantly undercutting her with the Contini and coming out of it all as the hero who saved his kidnapped cousin. Or John, for making it happen.

Cassian at least seems to understand that there wasn’t much choice in the matter; he’s warmed considerably in the last few days. Something to do with seeing John rescue a family member. Apparently that makes him less of a threat to Gianna. It proves his devotion to the D’Antonio clan as a whole. It makes him part of the whole.

Santino is a whole other issue. In the four days since the attack, John’s only spoken to him in public. And then only enough to keep the Investigator off their backs; in private, he has nothing to say, and Santino has given up trying to talk to him.

The worst part is, they still share a bedroom. The silences are getting excruciating. They sleep with their backs to each other, wake intertwined and separate stiffly, avoiding eye contact.

Cassian sighs. “Hearse is leaving in twenty; Ares went on ahead. I’m going to go have another look at the vehicles. Maybe walk the perimeter.”

“And you think I’m paranoid.”

“I _think_ half the mobsters in the city are gunning for us right now. That’s what I think. If the lion’s bleeding, the hyenas start watching real carefully.”

“Yeah,” John says tiredly. “I’m going with Santino; let me know if you need a hand with security.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Cassian says. “I know how you enjoy being right at the center of family functions.”

John watches him leave, grateful for what they’re mending. It’ll take a while. That’s fine. He needs the time himself. But they’ll get there eventually.

He steps away from the balcony, moving back inside. No destination in mind; he’ll have to join the procession at some point, a ghost at Santino’s shoulder, avoiding the looks and the mutters. Word is spreading. Francesca talked. With every person who repeats the warehouse story, another few bodies are added to the kill count. The only surprise is that no one’s decided he did it all with a piece of office stationery.

He’d give the funeral a miss if he could. If he never attends another funeral, it’ll be too soon.

The attendants are all outside in the sun. John makes for the kitchen, intending to bypass the crowd and join Cassian out front with the cars. Or wander down to talk to the gate staff. Something to make himself feel useful.

He gets as far as the kitchen before stopping. Santino is there, leaning on a counter.

“John,” he says pleasantly. “I thought you would come through this way.”

It’s a surreal setting for an ambush. Every flat surface is covered with wrapped trays of food; gifts from the funeral attendants, the neighbours, the locals who understand the benefit of keeping the royal family happy. The whole place smells of coffee, fresh pastry, warmth. John can hear the voices from the visitors outside. There’ll be no privacy today.

“Just staying out of the way.”

“I know,” Santino says. “You don’t like crowds. No one will speak to you at the ceremony. If you want to disappear afterwards, I can make excuses.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Many people will be disappointed. They have heard about what you did at the warehouse; some wish to thank you.”

Others will just want to stare. To say that they shook the legendary John Wick’s hand, and that he seemed quite harmless in person. Just a man, dressed for mourning. Nothing unholy about him at all.

“I’m not the family zoo animal,” John says. “You work the crowd; I’ll make sure you survive it.” He’s losing his calm veneer a lot faster than he can patch it back together. Hostility creeps through. There’s no one else in the room and he resents having to play happy marriage for an audience of two.

The pleasant smile is gone from Santino’s face. Now he just looks resentful. “I didn’t want to do it, John. If there had been any other way, or more time- but there was not. My resources were limited.”

So they are going to talk about it. Ten minutes before leaving for a funeral, with a hundred people out in the garden, a hearse out the front and a block of kitchen knives at John’s elbow. Now they’re going to talk about it.

“I see where the confusion’s coming from,” John says. “You’re looking at me and seeing a _resource_. I thought I was your husband.”

“John, listen-”

“No.”

Santino pulls back, startled. “Fine,” he says stiffly. “Talk, then. Tell me what the problem is.”

“We weren’t even married for a month before you sent me out to kill for you.”

“It was an emergency.”

“They’re all emergencies,” John snarls. “There will always be another one. The only thing that changes is how you handle them. If you’d stopped to explain, maybe I’d have offered to help.” He would have. He knows himself; he remembers the adrenaline rush at the first sign of serious trouble. A part of him wanted that. He would have offered. It wouldn’t have taken much. “But you gave me an order and told me to go.”

His voice is rising; he stops, glancing at the doors, wary of the sound of a fountain pen uncapping. The rustle of a notebook. Santino seems to agree. He moves to stand by John at the counter, his hands coming up to play at straightening John’s black tie.

“So you want more tact, is that it?” he says quietly. Coldly. “Should I have made it a request, though we both knew it was not?”

“You don’t even see the problem.”

“No,” Santino agrees. “I don’t. We _won_, John. If not for you, my cousin would be dead. And if not for me, you would not have gone at all. You were not injured, and we have sent a very clear message to the rest of the Camorra; if they move against us, we will not show mercy. This is a victory. I will not apologise. I did nothing wrong.”

John breathes in slowly. Santino’s hands linger on his tie; gently, John takes him by the wrists.

“You know what scares me?” he asks quietly. They’re so close; anyone walking in would assume they were interrupting something intimate. A quiet moment between the newlyweds, supporting each other at a difficult time. A lie like no lie he’s ever told before. “I walked into that room, looking for you. Worried about you. And you know who I saw instead?”

He leans in, lips brushing Santino’s ear. “Your father,” he says. He feels Santino go utterly still, and releases his hands. Still gentle, utterly irreproachable to anyone who might be watching.

“That’s who you reminded me of,” John says to Santino’s frozen expression. “Might want to think about it before the next…emergency.”

He leaves his husband standing alone in the kitchen and goes to help Cassian with security.

The best thing that can be said about the funeral is that it ends eventually. The trip is uncomfortable; Santino can’t even look at him. They sit at the mass in grim silence, never once touching, though the church is large and cold. John would have preferred to zone out, but he’s stuck in a loop of paranoia, checking and rechecking the exits, casting his eyes over the funeral guests and regretting having to sit so far forward in the pews. He has to put his trust in Cassian and Ares. It doesn’t come easy, though he knows they’re professionals.

He doesn’t understand most of what he hears. His Italian’s returning too slowly, and half the speeches are in the dialect Santino always refused to teach him. And there are so many of them. So much pain. A well-liked man, then, someone with a lot of friends, someone popular. It’s a strange, surreal thing, sitting at the front row of his funeral, catching fragments of sentences here and there, feeling out of place. Feeling lost. Helpless without a job to do.

Helen’s funeral was easier in that sense. The organising, the lists of things to take care of, the obligations, the rituals, the face he showed her friends. John; the same face Helen always saw. John the man. Not the monster.

Sitting in the front pew at a stranger’s funeral, John is keenly aware of every glance that brushes over his shoulderblades, the back of his head. The priest, crossing himself as John crossed his threshold. The Investigator, silent in her seat at the back of the church, notebook briefly tucked away though her eyes roam freely. Francesca’s muffled weeping. Gianna’s frozen silence. Every person under this roof knows him for what he used to be, not who he made himself into. All of them look at him and see John Wick.

He doesn’t belong here.

Santino keeps his head respectfully bowed, though this close to him John can see the rage. It smoulders, held at bay for the moment, but sooner or later John will feel its heat. He thinks he might be dreading it. That he might actually deserve the burns it’ll leave.

John skips out on the procession to the grave. Maybe that’s not the done thing; he’s past caring. He’s angry at everything that moves, and angry at himself for not being able to ignore the distractions. For stooping so unbelievably low with Santino; for the thing he said, which crossed so far over the line he can barely see it anymore. For losing control.

He shouldn’t have said it. However furious, however helpless he feels, he went too far. The guilt is almost as strong as the rage.

“You go in with the family,” he says to Cassian as people start heading for the grave and the burial. “I’ll take perimeter.”

Cassian raises his eyebrows. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah. Gianna wasn’t looking too good. She needs someone at her back.” The lie comes easily, but Cassian has no reason to doubt it. And it’s barely a lie; no one in the family looks happy. All of them counting the number of funerals they’ve been to recently. Wondering whose will be next. John makes it to the outskirts of the graveyard unnoticed.

It’s larger than the one he buried Helen in, but graveyards have a sameness to them that makes him nervy; John stays on the perimeter, in the tree line, forcing back the memories. He wants to forget her funeral. Wants very much for it to never have happened, but if he can’t have that then he’ll settle for finding peace. For having one day go by when nothing hurts at all. It’s something to work on.

Stepping between headstones, a woman approaches. Grey hair pulled back into a severe bun, her black clothes impeccable. Notebook in hand. John doesn’t bother to hide his sigh.

“Seriously?” he asks. But he’s more resigned than angered by it, and makes no effort to walk away when she stands at his side. It’s not comforting. Nothing about her is comforting. And still, it’s a distraction from solitude.

“I thought you would be with the procession,” she remarks. “But here you are.”

“Funerals are a touchy subject.”

“Of course. Your wife died recently. Do you miss her?”

John just looks at her. He doesn’t dignify the question with anything more than his stare, until eventually the Investigator looks away.

“I would tell you that you and your husband don’t look especially blissful today,” she says. “But it seems a bit pointless. Given the circumstances. Four D’Antonio funerals in a year, was it? The Camorra bleeds.”

“The will’s being read tomorrow.”

“Yes,” says the Investigator. “That must be reassuring. Mister Wick, I would like to tell you what I see right now. And then I have a question.” She waits for John’s shrug before continuing. “You mourn your wife, your hard-earned retirement. It was obvious the day I met you; it has been obvious ever since. And now here you are, avoiding having to step into a graveyard, presumably because doing so would hurt you immensely.”

John breathes in deep. Slow, even, letting the calm wash through. He doesn’t respond, but it wasn’t a question. He doesn’t have to answer.

The Investigator watches him. “Why did you marry Mister D’Antonio?” she asks. “Tell me the truth. Because what I see is a man in pain. A man who could spend years suffering a truly terrible loss, which he was in no way prepared for, and is not equipped to deal with. Not at all a man who is ready to move into another relationship.”

“This…_really_ isn’t a good time.”

“Why not?” she counters. “You’ve been married for barely three weeks. You really can’t come up with a single reason for why you love your husband?”

John turns away from her. In the distance, over the grass, he can see the movement of the funeral procession, the dark colours and dour looks, the family that owns him now. He’d like to muster hatred for them. Resentment for the things they make him do, and the man they make him be. He wishes he could single Santino out from the crowd and hate him, in the same way he’d hate anyone else who put a chain back around his neck and told him he was an attack dog once again.

But he knew from the start that this would happen. The price of his life was his freedom. He paid it. Why blame anyone but himself?

He has always known what kind of man Santino is. He has known, and he has made what peace he could.

“I didn’t move into another relationship,” he says. “More like…moving back into one that already existed. He was there when I wanted out. And when I was being pulled back in, he was there again.”

“So, gratitude.”

“You know he showed up at my house in the middle of a firefight?” John asks. He doesn’t know where he’s going with the story. It just springs to mind. “I thought he’d come to kill me.”

“I assume that wasn’t the case.”

“No. But believing that…hurt. Even after five years. And seeing him again, having him offer me shelter despite the risk, that was,” John pauses. He remembers. He remembers…so much. He’s drowning in the memories.

_It’s just over five years ago and his Task is complete, the bodies still warm, seeping gently where he leaves them. Coaxed out of safehouses and fortresses by messages from Santino; each receiving an offer of trade, a much-wanted deal, a proposal that a certain piece of art might now be on sale for the right buyer. All set up like targets for John to knock down, and as dawn rises he is victorious, almost unscathed. In the shadow of Santino’s doorway, John cuts his thumb and bleeds onto a marker he truly believes will never be called on. It hurts to hand over; their fingers brush. They look at each other a little too long, and then surge forward, kissing until the last of the night shadows aren’t dark enough to hide what they’re doing from themselves. And John is free._

_Fifteen years ago, Viggo’s New York business ventures start bringing him into closer contact with several more powerful entities. He brings the ace up his sleeve to every meeting; shows off the Boogeyman, who walks hand in hand with death each day and hates the way people stare at him. John meets Santino in an art gallery, at a special exhibition curated by his father. Giuseppe gives Viggo the tour. John counts and recounts the exits, the guards, the threats, and then glances again at the young man’s pale eyes. They don’t speak a word that first meeting. But they watch each other._

_Twelve years ago, he fucks Santino for the first time. It’s every bit as wild and unprincipled as he was hoping for; the bruises take a month to heal. They savage each other like predators off-leash, and then afterwards Santino falls asleep on his chest. John lies still underneath him for hours. He hardly dares breathe. No one sleeps near the Boogeyman. He can’t understand it._

_Seven years ago, he spends more of his nights in bed with Santino than not. Italy, New York, wherever the work takes them; they contrive increasingly risky reasons to find each other, though in the past they’ve gone months apart. It feels like a turning point: they either commit, or walk away. But committing will never be an option. The world will not give them that._

_Years ago, John stretches out between the sheets of Santino’s villa in Naples, and Santino’s townhouse in New York, and the Continental in Rome and a safehouse in Morocco, in Russia, in Canada, and thinks about an Impossible Task. He could do it with help, he thinks. Free himself, choose his own future. Trade the Tarasov collar for one with Santino’s name, and kill for the Camorra’s ruthless prince. It would kill him too, eventually. Or they might kill each other. It’s not an end he wants for either of them, but he thinks about it all the same._

_They have always been close._

“Interesting,” the Investigator says. John twitches slightly, pulled back to a too-bright present, reluctant to return.

“What?”

“You,” she tells him. “Mister D’Antonio is an accomplished liar; there’s not much I can get out from him that he doesn’t want me to see, at least without attacking weaknesses, which in turn distorts the answers. But you don’t lie. And the things I see on you are not things I can easily believe…except that I know you are not a liar. Very interesting. Thank you for sharing this with me, Mister Wick. And now I believe the guests are getting ready to leave. You should join them.”

They are leaving. Gathering slowly outside the graveyard’s gates, some still lingering on the pathway back. Poor Francesca finds herself ushered along, her mother on one side, a family guard on the other. Santino and Gianna are both at her back, vying for her attention, ignoring each other.

John meets them at the cars, silently holding a door open for the grieving widow with the broken arm. She glances at him; he spots relief as she steps into the car. Safer with the Boogeyman around. Cassian was right.

“Francesca will stay with us for a few more days,” Santino says as he catches up. His eyes flicker to the Investigator standing behind John. “I have told her she is welcome for as long as she wishes. I hope you don’t mind.” The last is a bland platitude, and Santino refuses to meet John’s eyes. Refuses to touch him, though they stand close.

“That’s fine,” John says. “Grief is…harder when you’re alone. Company helps.”

“As we both know.”

Finally, Santino reaches out to take one of John’s hands. A token gesture. His eyes are cold enough to freeze, but he knows as well as John does that appearances are everything. They play at gentleness, at shared support, slipping into the back seat of a car together and letting their knees touch. Santino leans in to whisper in John’s ear.

“When we get back,” he breathes, “you and I are going to have words.”

In a moment of brief, unfamiliar cruelty, John finds himself touching the line of Santino’s jaw, tilting his head for a lingering kiss that can’t be refused while there are eyes on them. He feels outrage in every inch of Santino’s body. It’s almost worth it. And then John comes back to himself, ashamed, and lets his husband pull away.

“Later,” he says.

Santino gives him an utterly unconvincing smile. “Later,” he agrees. His eyes promise bloodshed. John turns away. He spends the rest of the trip looking out the window, watching the city creep by.

Their arrival at the villa is a subdued affair; no organised family gathering, no party to remember the deceased. Everyone goes home, if they can, and the guests who remain will take care of themselves. There’ll be a quiet dinner later. For the moment, John follows Santino upstairs to their private rooms.

The door closes behind him, leaving them alone at last. They watch each other like wary cats, hackles up. Loosening his tie, John moves to the bed, sitting down exhausted. He waits for the fight he knows is coming. Part of him hopes for it. Part of him has been waiting for days.

“Take it back,” Santino says abruptly.

“Excuse me?”

“What you said earlier, in the kitchen. Apologise. Admit that it was a lie, and you were just…saying it. Saying the thing you knew would hurt me.” He seems so helpless in his anger, fumbling for ways to address it. It makes him so much younger. Sulky, almost. John pities him immensely, without quite knowing why.

“I meant it,” he says, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “You ordered me to go and kill for you. No questions, no chance to respond. Viggo did that. Your father did that. You never did. As far as I remember, you valued the things I had to say.”

“I had _no other options_. And Gianna’s plan would not have worked, whatever she believed.”

“So you sent me out to mess with Gianna?”

“No, John,” Santino snaps. He approaches; most people would know better, but Santino has always been something else. He stands over John, furious. “I sent you out because I was afraid. I admit it. My cousins stopped responding, and I feared the worst. You know how many funerals I’ve been to recently? I was _afraid_.”

“And you treated me like a tool,” John says. “Your own personal Boogeyman. Was that the small print on the marriage contract?”

“There was no small print.”

“There’s always small print with the Camorra.”

“You did not marry the Camorra,” Santino snarls down at him. “You married me. A man, John. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

“And you didn’t marry a weapon. Just me. When you said it wasn’t a return to the old days, I trusted you.”

“We’re at war.”

“And I can help you,” John says. There’s not much point in denying it; he knows himself, and he knows he’ll do it. He feels most real with the pressure of a trigger under his finger. “But not like…that. You don’t give me orders anymore, Santino. If I handle something personally, it’s because I choose to. Not because you feel cornered and can’t see past the moment.”

He really thinks Santino might punch him. That would be unfortunate. John will take a punch, but then he’s returning the favour. He spreads his hands, looking up; _go for it_. If Santino is actually stupid enough to take him up on the offer, there’s going to be blood.

Maybe that’s what they need. What better way to round off a funeral?

Santino’s fists clench slowly; fury has him shaking. The look in his eyes is dangerous. “I am not my father,” he says very slowly. “I will never be him. Say it.”

Of course that’s what he’s fixated on. Nothing else will get through to him as long as it remains unresolved.

But knowing Santino as he does, and knowing his father – knowing the _history_ – John can’t totally blame him. It was a cruel thing to say. Not something he’s proud of. And not something he wants hanging between them; some words are toxic, lingering in the chest like poison gas. Seeping into the blood flow. Stopping hearts.

This can’t be what kills them.

John sighs. “You’re not Giuseppe,” he says. “You were always better. I’m asking you to stay that way.”

He watches the words sink in. Santino mulls them over with the care he saves for the real insults; for the moments in the aftermath, when his enemies have watched their homes burn, and the blood of their relatives seeps into their shoes, their apologies soaked with very genuine remorse. When Santino considers whether he’s been properly avenged. If he can let the anger go. If he needs to take a few more skins before he feels restored.

It’s the first time John has been on the receiving end of that kind of rage. But he has rage of his own, and he stares Santino down as he waits. The prospect of retaliation doesn’t scare him. What else does he have left to lose? No wife. No home. No future.

Only Santino.

Finally, the other man nods stiffly. “Don’t say it again,” he demands. “Never. Understand? Once- _only once_\- I can allow, as a…mistake. Twice is unforgivable.”

John doesn’t blink. “Don’t give me orders. I’m on your side; not on your payroll. I’m _retired_.”

“I am not apologising,” Santino says. But he rests a hand in the crook of John’s neck, thumb stroking under his earlobe. It doesn’t feel like a threat, and John doesn’t take it as one. He moves his hands to Santino’s hips, tugging him to stand between John’s thighs. “I can’t. Maybe it was not respectful, what I did. How I treated you. But my cousin is alive, and I can’t apologise for her survival.”

“I understand that.” The admission is not an easy one to make, but they’ve arrived at a point where compromise is the only thing that will move them forward. John makes the first concession; he’s better at it, he’s had five years of practice. Santino’s never had to.

“I will be more careful,” Santino says. “If you want to take on some responsibility for family decisions, then I accept your offer. When a stronger response is needed, you can decide with me.”

“I get the final say. If you want me to take a job and I tell you no, that’s it.”

He can see the indecision on Santino’s face. No one overrules him. No one argues apart from family, and then only the closest. Gianna. His father. No one else has that authority.

“Santino,” he says. “I want this to work. I’m not ready to die yet. Viggo doesn’t get to spit on our graves. We’re better than that.”

“We always were,” Santino murmurs. Something in him gives way, and the last of the anger burns out without heat. “Fine, John. You choose your targets.”

“Assuming I choose any.”

“I said it was fine.”

“Glad we agree.” John drops his hands from Santino’s hips, standing. Santino doesn’t back off; it brings them close, chest to chest, instinctively moving to hold each other. Santino’s hands crossed around the back of John’s neck; John’s stroking over Santino’s lower back. They never did this before. There was never space in the typewritten lines of John’s contract and the invisible, equally uncompromising rules of Santino’s position. They could never be so gentle with each other, at a time of such vulnerability. John runs his hands over the back of Santino’s black jacket and feels the tension in his spine.

But he allows it. And that counts for everything. It means they might just survive.

“I shouldn’t have said it,” John admits, his chin on Santino’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. You already have enough people trying to hurt you; I’d rather not be one of them.”

“You will not say it again.”

“No.”

“Good.”

They separate slowly. It’s not a total forgiveness, but as resolutions go it’s better than either of them have ever managed before. Nobody’s bleeding. Nobody’s burnt. They go so far as to tidy each other up, Santino straightening John’s collar as John carefully strokes his hair, pushing errant curls back into place.

“I have to go downstairs,” Santino says. “To Francesca and her mother. To my family. Will you come with me?”

It’s not high on the list of things John wants to do. He’ll do it anyway. “Of course.”

The evening is subdued, but it was never going to be anything else. And it could have been worse; pushy questions from grieving strangers are easier to handle now Santino is back on his side. John lets his husband take the brunt of the attention and focuses on being polite. It’s not intolerable. There aren’t too many people around, and the occasion is a solemn one. He survives the curiosity. Survives Gianna’s lingering resentment, which she’s far too polite to spell out in public. Survives the confusion in Ares’ expression, as she glances between John and her boss and realises they’ve made up. Cassian, at least, manages a welcome.

“Good to have you here,” is all he says, but it’s more than John expected.

At some point after a cheerless dinner, he finds a moment to approach Francesca. She’s out in the garden; has been for most of the evening, as people come and go, and no one gives her a moment of peace. A glass of wine at her elbow, which she doesn’t seem to have noticed. She has the look of vase set too close to the edge of a shelf. Teetering.

John doesn’t ask her how she’s doing, or take a seat at the wrought iron table with her. Hands in his pockets, he stays on his feet. Surveys the garden. The spotlights pick up movement in the leaves of the olive trees. John watches them ripple in the wind.

“Thank you,” Francesca says at last. She doesn’t look at him. Her Italian is clear, precise; someone must have told her he’d appreciate it. Probably Santino. “I can’t remember if I said it before. Thank you for finding me.”

“I didn’t know you were there.”

“I know. But you acted; I heard that Gianna wanted to wait.”

“She didn’t know where you were either.”

“She knew I would die,” Francesca says. “It was a price she was willing to pay. I know her. Power before family.”

“You think Santino’s any better?” John asks. He’s not sure if he should ask. If it’s something a good husband would give voice to. But no one else will if he doesn’t, and this family doesn’t have the luxury of delusion. They need to know how things are going to be from now on.

The will is being read. Someone is going to leave. And someone is going to have to stay home and solve the problems that have been ignored for far too long.

“No,” Francesca says. “He isn’t better. They’re both terrible, in different ways. I know them. But I don’t know you.”

“I’m worse than both of them put together.”

“So the stories say,” Francesca agrees. “Did you really kill three men-”

“Yes.”

“Why a pencil?”

“I don’t know,” John says tiredly. “Didn’t feel like pulling a gun. And it was a slow day. I wanted a challenge. That’s who I was, back then.”

“And now?”

She wants to be told that he’s come here to help. All of them; they want to hear that the Boogeyman is staying to reclaim their territories, their family honour. Wash the dust away in pink-tinged water, throw open the windows to let out the smell of gunpowder and neglect. Clean house. He didn’t agree to this. Any of it. And the longer he lets them all hope, the worse it’ll be when they realise the legendary John Wick can’t save any of them.

“Now,” John says, “people make sure not to give me pencils. I’m sorry for your loss, Francesca. Truly. If you need anything…I’m not the one to ask.” He turns away from the garden as a guard comes into view between the trees, his outline familiar, his patrol route one that John himself suggested. All clear. No oversight necessary. The family is protected.

He catches Santino coming out of the main downstairs living room, looking more put together than John feels.

“Francesca needs you,” John says. He wonders if he’s making a mistake. The impulse that drives him is not one he recognises. “Talk to her.”

“Is there a problem?”

“Yeah,” John says. “The will’s being read tomorrow and she needs to be told that someone’s going to stay afterwards. I _know_,” he says as Santino starts to argue, to point out that they don’t know who’s getting the seat, that it’s not guaranteed, that he’s not a lost cause just yet. “It doesn’t matter. Your dad left a mess behind. Your family needs to hear that one of his kids cares enough to be here. Not New York, not Rome. Here. Go and tell her you haven’t forgotten where you came from.”

“I haven’t,” Santino says shortly. “Gianna, on the other hand-”

“It doesn’t _matter_.”

“And here I thought you were retired from this world,” Santino says. This time, he’s the one talking over John’s arguments. “Yeah, I’m going. I’ll talk to her. Whatever the outcome of the will, you are right; there is a lot of work to be done here. And I will take responsibility for it.”

John spends the rest of the evening shaking hands, muttering the introductions he’s been trying to avoid, and then avoiding others on the pretext of needing to check in with the guards. It works; he’s actually _thanked_ for it, as if basic security should be beneath him. As if he shouldn’t care enough to make sure that the gates are locked and watched over, that the walls are still standing. That no one’s gone and parked a fucking tank on his front lawn again.

Santino stays out with Francesca, seated at her side. People come and go in groups, talking to the widow, then to the heir; John catches fragments of conversation every time he passes. Reassurances. Discussions of weak points, strong points, the architecture of the D’Antonio empire in Naples. Reminiscences; _remember when we were so powerful that…_

_Yes, I remember. We can be like that again; I will make sure of it. Put your faith in me. I will not let you down again._

There are a lot of handshakes. Every person that comes back indoors afterwards wears a look of relief.

Just before midnight, John gives up on the waiting and goes to bed.

He wakes to darkness, movement under the covers. Santino settles at his side; half-asleep, exhausted, John lifts an arm to make room. It ends up wrapped around Santino’s bare shoulders, the other man’s head on his chest.

“Good talk?” John asks blearily.

“It’s a start. There will be many more to come. And you made it easier.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You made them feel safe in my home. In our home.”

“Your family have low standards for safety,” John mutters. He adjusts his arm to drape more comfortably over Santino’s ribcage, relaxing under the weight of him. It’s good to do this again. To ease into the trust, resentment set aside.

He can feel Santino’s breath against his collarbone.

“The will is being read tomorrow,” Santino says. It comes from nowhere, but it’s not a surprise. “I was not sure what I dreaded more; the funeral today, or the reading. I’m still not sure.”

“Hard week.”

“It will not get easier.”

It won’t. The easy times are over, and John’s five years of peace are drifting off into the distance, getting lost against the line of a storm-filled horizon. They’re not coming back. He never deserved them in the first place.

Santino exhales heavily, his breath tickling John’s skin. “I wish he had not died,” he says. “Marco. I should have responded faster; I didn’t realise how badly our power base had eroded. Had I paid more attention, I would have known better.”

“You didn’t know.”

“There were reports. For years, there have been reports, each more urgent than the last. But I was in New York. Covering up my father’s mistakes. Running from my own. Staying as far ahead of Gianna as I could. The High Table’s game was everything.”

John rubs his shoulder. He won’t lie to spare Santino’s pride. But he’s also not entirely a monster. He stays quiet. Feels Santino’s breathing start to deepen, in time with John’s own. They’re neither of them fully awake, and the day drained them both in cruel ways. Tomorrow will be worse.

“I liked him,” Santino mutters, sleep making his words slur. “He was…pleasant. Not intelligent, but good company. No politics, no competition. Whenever he visited, he made the time feel festive. I liked that.” He goes quiet against John’s chest, eulogy finished, and at last he passes into sleep. John holds him through it all.


	10. The Right Time

They wake with the dawn, as they usually do, wrapped around each other. John extricates an arm from under Santino’s ribcage, wincing as the blood flow returns. Santino makes no move to help free him; his eyes are open, but distant. He doesn’t want to be in the world just yet. Maybe he was dreaming of a better one. Maybe he’s counting the hours until the will is finally done with and his father lets him go. Or maybe he’s just tired.

John can relate.

Silent, he reaches out to push his fingers through Santino’s hair. His hand is still numb, tingling painfully, sensation slow to return. He takes his time with working through the tangles. Doesn’t pull. Doesn’t cause any more pain, because there’s too much of that around as it is. He just settles into the calming, rhythmic movements of stroking Santino’s hair, until the other man assents to closing his eyes and letting himself be soothed.

It’s not as long of a moment as it would be, in an ideal world where the day held nothing more than the ordinary. Still, it’s enough. When Santino opens his eyes, there’s more of himself in there. He brings a hand to John’s jawline, a thumb stroking his beard. And then he rises without saying anything. John follows. They leave the sheets to get cold in their absence.

“I have some business to attend to this morning,” Santino says as he dresses, exacting with buttons and cufflinks, though his hair is still all over the place. The brief contrast is usually enough to make John smile. But today is different. “It won’t take long. I’ll see you when I get back.”

“You know the will’s being read at two, right?”

“I know,” Santino says. “But this is not the kind of meeting I can delay.”

John mulls over the wording of that. He doesn’t like it at all. “You’re taking guards?”

“Ares. Enrico. A few others, maybe.”

“Do you want me to come?” The offer is sincere, despite the lingering caution between them. Santino recognises it as such; he smiles, taking one of John’s hands and kissing his knuckles.

“Not this time,” he says. “But thank you.”

He won’t discuss the meeting, whatever it is, and John is the worst person to attempt an interrogation. His questions are brushed aside, ignored. Around midmorning he watches Santino climb into a car with Ares, Enrico at the wheel, and no one else. Not even a skeleton crew. They drive away while John wrestles with the idea of following.

It’s never a good sign when Santino starts being avoidant. And with an argument still fresh on his mind and the infamous will on its way for the reading, John is unable to settle. He stalks the villa. The grounds and the armoury, lingering under the old olive trees; the house itself is once again filling with family, friends, this time without gifts of flowers and food. Now they come to hear what the patriarch might have left them. It won’t all go to the kids. All stand to benefit.

In her brother’s absence, Gianna hosts. She’s in black again, theatrically solemn as she kisses cheeks and accepts hugs from the guests, Cassian a dour shadow at her shoulder. She catches John’s eye for as long as it takes for her mask to slip, irritation showing through.

_Where is he?_ she mouths.

John shrugs. He doesn’t know. And as much as he suspects Gianna would like him to stay and provide a topic for conversation, that’s very much not his job anymore. He leaves her and poor Cassian to it.

The Investigator is missing. John doesn’t remember seeing her since the funeral; certainly not at the gathering the night before, though it should have been something she attended. Watch the extended D’Antonio family respond the Santino’s new husband. Watch for responses, see if he’s accepted. See if he wants to be. See if his husband makes an effort to introduce him. Her absence suggests she was somewhere she considers more important, and John is running low on patience for mysteries.

There’s a stillness to the air, for all the people filling the household. Anticipation; dread, although maybe the latter’s more his problem than anyone else’s. The will is coming, and John is not ready. He can’t begin to know what he’ll do if Gianna gets the seat. What Santino will do.

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Santino gets it. The more he thinks about it, the more the idea worries.

A High Table seat and a golden collar for the monster people call the Boogeyman. The Camorra will fall into line; maybe New York will too. Maybe the world. Santino would bring a nuclear warhead to a knife fight, and sit back to enjoy the fallout. He’ll have John to help him do it. Maybe that was the plan all along.

It’s too late to run. But still John considers it, until he finds himself back on the driveway, watching Santino’s car return. Relief very briefly overpowers the worry; he waits as Santino climbs out of the car, alive and apparently unharmed.

“John,” Santino calls to him. “Still here? Were you lonely?”

John approaches warily. He gets the sense that something is going on, and that he’s being excluded. Nothing good ever came from an ambush. “No. How was the unavoidable meeting?”

“Productive,” Santino says. “As I had hoped; I have been planning it for several weeks, but I was not sure I could pull it off.”

“What did you do?” Apprehension gnaws at John’s nerves. “Santino, what have you _done_?”

Santino moves to the back door of the car. “Something I can be proud of.” He opens it.

A black blur explodes outwards, scattering gravel as it sprints across the driveway. Even John’s reflexes are only barely fast enough for him to ready himself. He braces, and then the dog dives head first into his stomach.

“What-”

Winded, John drops to one knee. He ruffles ears and strokes fur, utterly failing to avoid several very wet kisses to his face. He doesn’t even mind. He is, to his own shock, laughing.

“Good dog,” he says, patting it. “_Good_ dog. Can you stop- okay. Never mind.” It bounces around him, tail beating bruises into his shins, until John surrenders against the inevitability of fate and lets himself be pushed off balance. He sits back on the gravel as it jumps on him, barking. Ruffles its ears again, and then tries to push it off when it gets to work on licking his beard. He doesn’t have much luck there.

Santino stands back. He’s smug, but that’s not all he is. He watches them with a warmth John has rarely seen on him.

“Help me,” John begs, holding the dog at a reasonable distance. It licks his hands instead.

“No,” Santino tells him. “How can I? If you had given it a name, I could call it. But you did not. This is your punishment.”

“Charon said- yeah, okay, _good dog_\- it was going to be another week. Paperwork issues.”

Santino shrugs. “I asked him to lie. To surprise you. He did not mind, when I explained my reasons.” Despite his pretended distance, he drops to one knee and whistles. Tail wagging, the dog bounds over to him. Some sense of self-preservation tells it not to try licking the crime lord’s face. It sits while he strokes its ears.

“You need to teach me how you do that,” John comments, sitting back on the gravel, not bothering to dust himself off just yet.

“No,” Santino tells him. “Seeing you here, brought to the ground by one small dog…it is the funniest thing I have seen in months. You will get no help from me.”

“Figures.” John can’t wipe the smile from his own face, though it fits him strangely. It doesn’t fade as the dog decides it’s been neglecting him and comes back to have another go at licking any bit of skin it can reach. It does seem to be calming down; John manages to coax it off, kneading the soft fur over its shoulders.

“Good dog,” he tells it again. And then looks at Santino. “Thank you.”

Santino stands, dusting his knees off. “It was no trouble. I know…” he hesitates, looking for words. “Today could be difficult,” he settles for. “It will be a turning point, for better or worse. It decides the rest of my life, and there is nothing I can do to change it. I had my chance while my father still lived.”

It’s easier to be gentle with him right now. “You did your best,” John tells him. “There was nothing else you could have done.”

“Maybe,” Santino says. He watches John stroke their dog’s ears. “This, at least, is something I can do. One good memory to look back on, if the rest of the day is a nightmare.”

_Your dad was a fucking psychopath_, John thinks. Not for the first time, but he’s never been free to linger on it before. And it has never felt as personal as it does right now. _Doing this. To you, to Gianna. What kind of stupid game is worth devastating your kids for?_

“I have your back,” he says. The force in his tone startles them both. “Whatever the outcome, I’m here. I know it’s not much-”

“It is, John,” Santino says quietly. He offers a hand, helping John to his feet. Between them, their dog pants, utterly happy and utterly uncomprehending. “It makes all the difference. If Gianna gets the seat, I…am not sure how I will respond. You need to be calm for me.”

“Sure.”

They stand close, looking at each other. John hesitates to reach out; he can’t be sure that’s what Santino needs from him right now. Later, maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s enough just to stand at his side.

“Don’t kiss me,” Santino says. “You smell like dog.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“Whose _dog_ is that?”

“Ours,” John says. He doesn’t kiss Santino. Just wraps an arm around his shoulders and pushes him towards the house, the dog winding between their legs like a shadow they share.

The will arrives at ten to two, carried in a sleek black Mercedes by a black-clad miniature army. The Investigator materialises from within the house to meets them in the driveway, receiving a heavy wooden chest from two soldiers in helmets and body armour. There are salutes; gestures John doesn’t recognise, silent assertions of fealty, faith, service. The guards get back into the car. They leave without further ceremony, the gates closing slowly behind them.

At exactly two o’clock, the family gathers out in the garden.

The box sits on one of the wrought iron outdoor tables, polished wood gleaming, the lock as intimidating as any safe John’s ever seen. He wonders briefly if it needs to be smashed open. A symbolic end to a violent man’s life. A last piece of destruction among so many others.

And then Gianna and Santino approach the box, and the Investigator who stands in front of it. Grudgingly, they each give her a small metal object.

Keys. One for each heir. Makes sense. The Investigator applies them both to the lock, cracking mechanisms open, a complex operation even without so many eyes on her. John stops watching a few seconds in, when it becomes clear that this is going to be a process. Instead, he watches the crowd. Lawyers; lots of them. Seems like everyone brought their own, and the heirs each have a team. Family and guards, wariness and hunted looks and hunger. Exhaustion. Resignation. Not a smile to be seen. Gianna wears impatience with her diamonds, whispering in Cassian’s ear.

Santino makes his way back to John’s side, looking grim.

“I did not know she would read it,” he mutters. “But it was decided that she should. Her rank is high enough, and there did not seem any need to send for another when she was already here.”

“I’d rather her than an Adjudicator.”

“Maybe,” Santino says. His eyes are fixed to the box. “Or maybe it would have been better for us all if the will was destroyed unread.”

“Not sure I’d want to deal with the consequences.”

John watches the last lock click open, the box lid falling back to reveal a small pile of papers, wrapped in black ribbon, sealed in black wax. He’s not close enough to make out the details, but he finds himself rubbing a thumb over his wedding ring, the engraved D’Antonio crest. The Investigator breaks the seal easily, letting the ribbon fall forgotten to the grass. She lifts out the papers. They make a sizeable bundle, but only one of those pages will count for anything. Only one will shape the future.

“_Dio mi aiuti,_” Santino breathes. “I don’t want to be here. I would give anything to make this end. Why can’t it just be over?”

This is not the place to touch him openly, to drop a spotlight on a moment of weakness in front of the whole family. John finds one of his hands, hanging at hip height where no one will notice. Brushes his fingers against Santino’s. Through the crowd he sees Gianna’s nails digging hard into Cassian’s forearm. He and Cassian make eye contact. Worry is shared. No one is ready.

The Investigator clears her throat and starts to read in perfect Italian.

She tells them that this is the last will and testament of Giuseppe D’Antonio, its contents witnessed by six other members of the High Table, as is customary. That the wishes of the document are sacred to the Table, and that none of its bequests are in any way contestable; copies will be made available to those who wish to read them, but the original is to be returned to the High Table’s vaults, in perpetuity.

And then she gets to the High Table seat. Tells them that it has belonged to the D’Antonio family for almost seventy years, and that Giuseppe was proud to have held it for so much of his life. That he leaves it now to one of his children.

That he leaves it to the strongest, the most cunning, the most worthy. To the child he has been honoured to raise.

He leaves the seat to Gianna.

There’s a sigh that spreads through the crowd like a slow-motion shockwave from a bomb site. Low murmurs, no outrage. No surprise. Just sounds of acceptance from people who have always known old Signor D’Antonio, whose favouritism was blatant, and who have always known his children. Gianna, with the patience and the subtlety. Santino, passionate to the point of unpredictability.

It’s the right choice. John will never say it out loud, but in this alone he agrees with the old man. Gianna will do well at the High Table.

The Investigator keeps reading as John makes brief eye contact with the heiress, giving her the slightest of nods, as much an excuse to let her know he’s happy for her as to avoid seeing Santino’s reaction. But of course, it’s not over. Not done yet. And for all his faults, Giuseppe D’Antonio was always capable of surprises.

He leaves Italy to Santino.

For a moment John blinks at the Investigator, wondering if he’s misunderstood her Italian, which is so clearly superior to his own. But he can hear the people around him repeating her, startled, some delighted. The sudden flare of triumph on Gianna’s face is another piece to the puzzle, and the rest John guesses.

So. Santino gets the Camorra. The source of his family’s power; the home he left behind. Not New York, which will be Gianna’s to claim and keep if she wants it, and not those other bastions of High Table dominance, the largest cities in the world. Santino gets a region on the knife edge of war, a fragmented city, ripping open under the pull of the various clans he left behind in his pointless quest to impress a father that was never going to love him enough.

Santino gets years (_decades_, John thinks, _if we’re really unlucky_) of struggle, of bloodshed, of power plays and constant challenges before he can really call himself lord of the Camorra. The Mafia will start moving in, if it hasn’t already. The ‘Ndrangheta, alliances aside, will bite at their ankles, agitate their fault lines. Other groups, other empires, will spot weakness and dive in like sharks sensing blood.

Santino inherits a mess, the scope of which John can only just begin to guess at, and John…

John is his husband.

He stares sightlessly at the Investigator, now reading down through the lesser bequests, trinkets and artworks and remembrances. Wonders just how fucked he is. Knowing his luck, the worst hasn’t even started yet.

There’s movement in the crowd, Ares appearing without seeming to have approached, the ice in her expression melting momentarily as she glances at Santino. Finally, John follows her gaze. He doesn’t see the devastation he’s half-expecting; not misery, or rage. Just a tight, sardonic smile on Santino’s face, as if he expected nothing more and was in no way disappointed.

_Go_, Ares signs. Santino doesn’t seem to have noticed her, but it’s not him she’s talking to. _He’s dangerous like this. Take him somewhere else and let him breathe._

John nods. He puts an arm around Santino’s shoulders, leaning in to mutter, “It’s over. We can go now. No one’s going to care if you need to take a walk. Come on.” It’s a mark of how well Ares has judged the situation that Santino doesn’t bother to protest, or even respond. He lets John nudge past great aunts and uncles, cousins, grand-whatevers, the lawyers and the bodyguards in suits. No one pays them much attention; the Investigator is reading her way through individual bequests, and no one wants to miss their name being called.

They almost make it uninterrupted. At the door back into the house, they meet Francesca. She stands with her mother, broken arm in a sling, smiling.

“Good,” she says with satisfaction. “It was a good choice.”

Santino twitches slightly. John might be the only one who notices. “Oh?”

“Yes. Gianna can take her _diplomacy_ to the High Table. We need you here. The Camorra needs you home.” She glances at John. It’s the first time she’s looked at him properly since he rescued her. “Both of you,” she says. “The family needs to be together.”

She couldn’t possibly have picked a worse time. John hunts for a suitably bland response, but Santino is faster.

“We can talk later,” he says. “Excuse me; I will not be gone long.” He pushes past her into the villa, John and Ares trailing behind.

They follow him up to the second floor, to a comfortable sitting room with a balcony looking out over a different side of the garden; from this height, the bay is visible in the distance over the perimeter wall. Distant, still. No wind to stir the waters.

This is a quieter part of the house. Older, the decorations more traditional. A beautiful mosaic coats one wall, greens and greys and blues. On one of the brown leather couches, the dog is sprawled on a wool blanket, asleep in a patch of afternoon sun. It opens its eyes as they enter, wagging a lazy tail.

Santino ignores it completely. He steps out onto the balcony, leaning against the railing. It’s clear he wants to be alone.

_Let me handle this,_ John signs to Ares. He doesn’t feel confident in the slightest; a part of him welcomes her hesitation, the pushback in her response.

_You think you know what you’re doing?_

_Yes._

_You don’t know shit._

Brusquely, John drops his hands to his side. He pauses on his way to the balcony, stopping to give the dog a gentle pat. It drops its head back onto its paws, clearly satisfied with the acknowledgement. Utterly ignorant of what’s just happened. Happy with its patch of sunlight.

Out on the balcony, John stops at Santino’s side.

He doesn’t say anything. How can he, when he knows better than anyone how it feels to be a man who has lost everything? There’s no platitude in the world that will fill the hole left by absence. There’s nothing he can say. John leans on the balcony, bows his head and waits.

“I knew it was going to happen this way,” Santino says. There’s nothing in his voice, or his expression. He talks like he’s not quite in the moment. His eyes are somewhere else. “Gianna and I, we both knew. There was no secret; she was older, she was our father’s favourite, and I…existed. How do you say it? _The heir and the spare_? Yeah. The first time I heard that, it made me laugh. And now she’s the one who is laughing.”

John doesn’t touch him.

“Would you kill her for me?” Santino asks in that same empty tone.

John closes his eyes. He wishes it wasn’t something he’d expected; wishes it came as anything close to a shock, instead of a request he’s been half-expecting, dreading for years. “How much choice do I have?”

“So you refuse.”

“I don’t think this is the right time to talk about it.”

“No?” Santino asks. “Would you prefer to wait for her coronation? Or after, when she takes the throne? When do you think would be _the right time_, John?”

“If you want her dead, why not do it yourself?”

“She’s my sister. I could never kill her.”

“She’s _my_ sister,” John says quietly, firmly. “I’m married to her brother; we’re family. That’s a bond I’m not going to break.” He turns to look at Santino. “I’m asking you to respect that.”

Santino’s jaw tightens. For a moment, something truly nasty flits across his face. Something cold and inhuman, all the worst parts of him coalescing into an expression John never wants to see again. He doesn’t need to be told; he _knows_ Santino is thinking about the marker. What it could buy him. What it might cost.

John is not a man who begs for mercy. Too much pride. Too good at his job to end up in situations where he might need to. But none of that will save him from the force of Santino’s rage, and now he readies himself to beg, as futile as it will be. _Don’t do this. Please. Don’t break what we’re trying to build._

And then Santino turns away, back to the balcony and the sky. “No,” he breathes. “You are not a tool; you said it, and I made you a promise. I gave my word. No.”

A weight seems to fall from John’s shoulders. Memory arrives in its place.

_“I can’t give you a marker,” he says, five years ago, desperate. “I’m trying to get out for good. I can’t come back. Not for anything. Not even for you.”_

_Santino smiles. In his hands, the metal disc, still clean. “I know, John,” he says. “But there are customs. Rules. I can’t help you for nothing, but this? This is how we make it work. Trust that I will never call upon you, for as long as you stay out. Just as I trust you to never come back. This is how we free you. It’s a gift. And I give you my word; stay retired, and you will never hear from me again. I swear it on my honour, and on all that we have ever meant to each other.”_

_There are very few people John trusts to keep their word to the very letter. But he never doubts Santino for a second. _

“Thank you,” he says in the here and now, still warmed by the past. “For being the man I remember.”

Santino shrugs, though he doesn’t move as John rests a hand on his shoulder. “A lesser man now. You picked the wrong side; better for you if you had married Gianna.”

John pulls at Santino’s shoulder until he’s forced to turn. “I don’t regret you,” he says. “When I decided to get out, I went to you. Not Gianna. Not Winston, or Marcus. You were never the lesser man. And now you’re free.”

“Am I?”

“Sure,” John says. “Your father had his say. He’s _done_, Santino. The High Table seat, it’s done. It’s over. That’s freedom.”

“Or surrender,” Santino retorts. “I take no pride in my defeat, John. No comfort. You call this freedom, but the bars on my cage are closer than they ever were, and now I can barely breathe. No. This is not freedom.” He glances over John’s shoulder, back into the sitting room where Ares stands by the door. Her hands are folded at her waist, tattoos on dark display.

“Could _you_ do it?” Santino asks her. “Kill my sister, steal me a crown. Would you do it?”

Ares tilts her head. She considers.

_Sure_, she signs when she’s ready. _Is that an order?_

Santino mulls it over. John takes a breath, holding in the things he’d like to say, none of which will improve the situation. He’s seen Ares on the hunt. She’s good; dogged, merciless, devoted in that way all the best assassins are. She’s very good. She has to be, when her ward is the prince of the Camorra.

But Cassian is a whole other beast; there’s only one person John knows of who’s ever taken him down. And that person’s no longer for sale. Not a tool anymore.

“No,” Santino says at last. “Not yet, at least. There are too many unknowns, and I would not set you against all of Gianna’s guards. We would need to plan very carefully. For the moment, wait. But if a chance arises, I will remember your offer.”

Ares smiles. _And I remember what loyalty means, even if he doesn’t_. Her glance at John is pointed, mocking.

It stings more than it should. He wants to storm over her, glare her down, ask her to her face what the fuck she thinks he’s doing here, standing at Santino’s side, trying to talk him down from the kind of self-destruction John remembers well. Trying to show him an escape route. Trying to guide him, dog to demon, out of this incredibly personal hell.

It’s a kind of loyalty she doesn’t recognise. But it’s not fair to blame her for that; she’ll never make it out. Never find a reason to want to leave, or a hope that she could be something more than she is. Her loyalties are written in blood. John’s were too, once upon a time. It was years before he understood they could take other forms.

“You don’t win anything for killing Gianna,” he says, hating the sense that he needs to vie for Santino’s attention, the feeling of gently pulling a loaded gun from the hands of a man with too much inclination to use it. “The High Table will know. They’ll kill _her_,” he nods at Ares, “and then they’ll execute you. Hand your seat over to the Contini, or someone else.”

“I did say I would need to plan carefully,” Santino says. But he seems to take John’s argument into consideration; he gives Ares a short nod, dismissing her. Turns back to the balcony, resting both hands on the railing.

“It will take years,” he mutters. “And I must appear guiltless. If they believe that I have surrendered the seat in favour of a different life…there is a chance. And when they ask me if I killed her, I will tell them I could not have. Because I was here, in Napoli, as our father wished. Satisfied with my work, the restoration of the Camorra and the honour of my family. Happy with my marriage.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Luck is not necessary,” Santino says. “The last, I already have. Yes, I know,” he says when John makes an incredulous sound. “It does not always seem to be the case. I asked you for a favour, and you refused me. No one else would dare. But you demand my respect. You _demand_ that I stand by my promise, as a man of honour. When I am at my worst, you make me better than I could be. And then somehow you say that you do not regret me. If this is not a happy marriage, there is no such thing.”

John thinks about it. He tries not to weigh things against his five golden years, his borrowed time in paradise; they are not the same, and never will be. He thinks instead of the man he used to be. The things he used to want. The things he never believed he could have.

That man would have been very happy where he is now. Bound to Santino, but freed by a promise. Not a tool. Given time, maybe not a monster anymore.

He has time. If Santino is planning years ahead, that buys him time to change things. John has never been one to look at things in the long term; he tries not to think beyond the scope of the next mission, each of which has a good chance of being his last. He’s woefully unprepared for this. But he’ll learn. He’ll have to.

“Let’s just get through the coronation,” he says. “And the Investigator. If we’re both still standing after that…”

“The rest is easy,” Santino agrees. “You’re right. Now is the time for survival, and I should not look too far beyond it; I can’t afford to lose focus.” He steps away from the railing, straightening his tie and collar, breathing deep until the misery starts fading from his expression. Tucked away behind a neutral look that could mean anything at all. He wears it like John wears the black uniform; like a man stepping into a battlefield.

John feels a surge of something that isn’t pity, but cuts all the same.

_You need a break_, he thinks. _Time to rest. You’re carrying too much weight; someone needs to make you set it down a while. It will help. I promise, it will help_. He can’t give Santino that kind of epiphany. Retirement isn’t an option here.

But there has to be a way to show him that he can have a life without the constant shadow of pain. Without a never-ending war against Gianna. There has to be something John can give him that isn’t death.

“Back to the scene,” Santino says. “I need to congratulate my sister; I think I can almost sound convincing. But some disappointment would be right, in the moment.”

John sighs. “I’m with you,” he says.

“I know,” Santino tells him. “It is the reason I can do this. You, at my back, reminding me of who I am. Stay with me, John. I need you here.”

“You have me,” John says. He rests an arm around Santino’s shoulders, relieved to find he’s not pushed away. Ares glares, but he ignores her. On the couch, the dog watches them, its tail gently wagging.

They go back outside to congratulate Gianna.


	11. My Life in Your Hands

Under the stained glass and centuries-old frescoes of the Continental’s ceilings, John shakes Julius’ hand for the first time in over half a decade.

“Nice to see you,” Julius says; he even sounds like he means it. “_Congratulazioni per il tuo matrimonio. _I only wish you had made your vows here; it would have been my pleasure to officiate.”

“We were a little pressed for time,” John says.

Julius leads the way to a couple of red velvet seats. “Of course, of course. But perhaps you will consider a belated celebration? It seems a shame to skip the festivities entirely, on such a sad year. So many funerals! I have been very worried for your husband’s family.”

“We’re here for a coronation,” John points out. “Gianna’s not skipping any festivities.” A waiter stops by with a tray, setting little cups of espresso on the table between them. With the way John’s morning is going (the way his last few weeks have been going), he accepts it gratefully. He’s been awake since four. The family drove up from Naples early.

“The Continental is very happy for Gianna D’Antonio,” Julius says smoothly. “She is welcome here; our services are hers to enjoy. But I cannot imagine that it has been easy for her brother. Your husband, now.”

“Santino is…happy for Gianna.”

“That sounds highly uncharacteristic of him.”

John sips his espresso. He glances around the lobby, taking in the sharp clothes and sharper weapons, the judiciously concealed carries and the background strains of Vivaldi from the hidden speakers. It gives him an excuse to avoid the very knowing expression on Julius’ face.

“It is what it is,” John says. “Don’t mention it to him.”

“I would not dream of it. But…we will ensure that the D’Antonio siblings have rooms on different floors. To allow for some distance. A bit of breathing space, shall we say.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“And I believe High Table custom is for the festivities to last a week after the coronation; the room bookings will be the same, or so I have been informed.”

That was a nasty surprise, when it first came up. It’s not enough to have a coronation; Gianna’s going to spend the next week hosting parties, gatherings, exchanges of vows and apologies for old wrongs. He supposes it makes sense. A single massive event with every member of the High Table, every powerful leader and famous assassin…something like that would be insanity. Better to spread things out over the course of a week, so that only Gianna and her staff are ever sure of who exactly will attend what, and where. No one from the High Table will come to her coronation. But she’ll be meeting them all over the next few days. It’s how things are done.

It’s a nightmare for security. And hell for Santino, who’s required to spend every waking moment at his sister’s side, enforcing his support of her ascendance. Humbling himself to anyone who asks it of him.

The cracks aren’t starting to show; they’re already chasms, cutting huge swathes through his tattered pride. John is constantly on edge for an eruption. It hasn’t happened yet, but at some point it probably will. Santino doesn’t handle humiliation. He’s not going to make it through the week.

But maybe he doesn’t have to.

“Gianna and her security team are staying until the parties are finished,” John says. “Cassian’s in charge. He’ll stop by to talk details later.”

“And Santino?”

John hesitates. But not for long. “No. We’re checking out after the coronation. Tomorrow morning.”

“Are you?” Julius raises his eyebrows over the rim of his espresso cup. “How unorthodox. May I ask what Signor D’Antonio is planning?”

“He doesn’t know yet,” John says. “Call it a late wedding gift. Could you do something for me?” From an inner pocket of his suit jacket, he pulls out a folded slip of paper, sliding it across the coffee table to Julius. Carefully, Julius opens it. He reads the instructions, a smile forming as he reaches the end.

“Yes, Jonathan,” he says, tucking the note away into a pocket. “I can certainly accommodate that request. It seems a very…neat way of averting potential disaster.” He and John share wry smiles over their coffees.

“Thank you,” John says sincerely. “And sorry in advance for the Investigator. She’s on her way to interview you.”

Julius shrugs. “It is no trouble. My archivist is searching for the records that have been requested. They were almost certainly kept; the question is, where? And if they cannot be found in time, then with your permission I am happy to provide what evidence I can, from my own memories.”

“Go ahead. Not sure what you remember, but it all helps.”

“I remember enough, I think,” Julius says. “On several occasions I considered suggesting that you and Signor D’Antonio might be more subtle about your affection. But then I asked myself, why interfere with young love? It is so rare in this world. Such a pleasure to see, though the outcome is usually bleak. But that is all the more reason to enjoy it while it blossoms.”

“I did enjoy it,” John admits. He’s less surprised by Julius’ admission than he was to discover that Marcus knew. He remembers his stays at this Continental. Remembers exactly how subtle he and Santino weren’t. “As for the outcome…we’ll see. Thanks, Julius. I’m not sure what time everyone will start arriving.”

“The rooms are yours. You may check in at whatever time is most convenient. Key cards will be at the desk for collection; this one is for yourself and your husband. One of our finest rooms.”

“That sounds perfect,” John says, accepting the card he’s given. “What are your thoughts on dogs?”

Julius sets his coffee cup down gently. “If almost anyone else asked me that, they would be politely shown to the door. But if the dog in question is yours-”

“And Santino’s. It’s with him right now.”

“I see,” Julius says. He sighs. “Well, if the dog in question belongs to both yourself and the lord of the Camorra, then there is no argument to be made. I can only hope it has been well trained, and will cause no trouble for the other guests.”

“None at all.”

“In that case, the dog will be permitted. As an exception to the rule.”

“Thank you.” John pockets the key card, shakes Julius’ hand again, and steps back out into the streets of Rome.

The D’Antonio estate where the coronation will be held is within walking distance; John takes his time, enjoying the feeling of cobblestones instead of asphalt, the ancient architecture, the sense of history. The sense that nothing he does will matter in a century or two. The city won’t remember. It helps him keep things in perspective as he approaches the worn stone walls of his destination. There are guards on the outskirts, some obvious, some dressed as tourists. Sitting at café tables, peering at voluminous maps that hide the outlines of their holsters.

They know him well by now. He’s not stopped as he crosses the road into D’Antonio territory, but a guard in denim and a loud _I love Rome! _T-shirt gives him a nervous smile and mutters, “_Buongiorno, Signor Wick_.”

John sighs. “Come on,” he says through lips that barely move. “You’re under cover. You don’t know me, you don’t talk to me. You don’t even look at me.”

“Sorry, Signor Wick.”

It’s not worth picking a fight over; half the city knows what’s happening here, and the ones that don’t are no threat to the Camorra. John lets it slide. He makes a mental note to run some extra training, when the partying ends and he’s back in Naples with Santino’s guards. Too many overenthusiastic local kids hired on to run guard duty, undertrained and unprepared for the situations they’re being thrown into. Some military backgrounds, but those come with problems of their own.

He’s going to have his work cut out for him. But it’ll still be more fun than the coronation.

It’s both rushed and meticulously planned. The setup itself has come together in the space of two weeks; the open ground in the middle of what used to be a massive bathhouse, converted into an amphitheater, stages constructed for musicians and dancers. The spotlights and speakers are still being adjusted by crew, but most of the decorations are in place.

John makes his way across a massive red carpet that stretches over freshly mown grass. Some of the old stone walls are badly worn in places, but the damage is hidden by satin drapes. Large golden globes scatter the open space; they’ll light up after sunset, and Gianna will have the atmosphere she’s looking for. Spotlights, smoke, Roman ruins and electronica. John doesn’t understand it in the slightest, but he doesn’t have to. All he has to do is make sure no one dies.

Cassian meets him out on the red carpet, casual in jeans and a crumpled shirt. John doesn’t look much more professional; they’ll put on their uniforms later, black on black to announce their intentions. For the moment, they’re just trying to cope.

“How was the Continental?” Cassian asks.

“Fine. Room cards are at the front desk when you’re ready to check in.”

“Soon, I hope,” Cassian says. “The people we sent on ahead worked hard. We’ll be ready. The band did a bunch of sound checks yesterday; apparently our acoustics are decent. Nice to hear.”

“It’s not exactly top on my list of priorities,” John says. He and Cassian share a dry laugh, glancing at the stage.

“Security’s going to be…” Cassian doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to; they’re on the same page, and have been ever since seeing the plans for Gianna’s desired location.

Artificial smoke, golden bulbs and spotlights, satin draping rippling in the breeze. Shadows and uncanny movements in the dark. Glitter on clothes, catching the eye. Distractions and concealment.

The fucking catacombs.

“How’s the _basement_ looking?” John asks, glancing down at the ground. Under his feet, miles of interlinked tunnels, unexplored for centuries. The D’Antonio family records produced two different maps; an old collector he knows in a shop just off Piazza Navona showed him three this morning. Only one of those was a counterpart to one of the D’Antonio versions. There is an unexplored labyrinth beneath these old baths, and John has only been in Rome a few hours. The people he sent ahead to investigate…tried. But no one knows the exact layout. There’s no time to look further.

“We replaced the locks on the entrances,” Cassian says.

“The entrances we know about, at least.”

“Yeah. Set up warning signs, motion sensors, pressure plates. Land mines a bit further in, so don’t go wandering. A whole bunch of the tunnels feed out into the ground level, but we don’t have time to block those exits off properly. And Gianna wouldn’t allow any construction work. I’ve stationed guards.”

“How reassuring.”

“Yeah,” Cassian says. “You can say that again. Listen, it’s been…amazing having your help with the planning. Working with you again. I couldn’t have secured this place on my own.”

“It’s not secure,” John says. “_Secure_ doesn’t come with catacombs that could lead all the way out of the city for all we know. And an open-air venue’s just begging for a drone strike.”

Cassian shrugs. “Preaching to the choir, John.”

Across the grass, one of the concert speakers blares high-pitched feedback. All the guards in the area flinch, John and Cassian included. If it happens during the event itself, John thinks he might actually kill someone.

“I realise you’re technically a guest,” Cassian says, glaring daggers at the stage crew. “But if you could walk the perimeter a couple of times during the evening, maybe check in on the catacomb entrances, keep your eyes peeled for anything strange-”

“Consider it done,” John says. “If Santino kills anyone while I’m gone, that’s not on me.”

“Take him with you. I can give you a map of where our land mines are set, if you want to push him into one and pretend it was an accident.”

“Yeah, fuck you too, Cassian,” John says, but he’s laughing. There’s nothing else to do; the whole situation is fucked, no one is safe, and the best he can hope for is that he can keep himself and his new family alive until sunrise. As if the last few weeks haven’t been bad enough. As if he hasn’t felt like he’s walking barefoot across a mile of broken glass shards anytime he stands in the same room as the warring siblings, pretending at neutrality, happy for Gianna and hurting for Santino.

“Viggo’s going to be there,” Cassian says carefully. John glances at him and receives an apologetic shrug. “He’s an old family friend, John, we had to invite him. Kind of figured he just wouldn’t show, but he sent the RSVP this morning, if you can believe that. Him and his lawyer and guards, party of five. Thank god we overdid it on the catering.”

“If the assassin thing doesn’t work out, you could move into event planning.”

“If you could get off my back, I’m _trying_ to make sure you’re okay with this.”

“Not like I have a choice,” John says. “It’s not my coronation. I’m just the guy he put on death row, and my husband with me.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Cassian says. “So…I guess we make sure you don’t go anywhere near him. Good to know. I can’t even blame you for it, honestly. That Investigator thing is all kinds of messed up. Who _cares_ why you married Santino? People get into arranged marriages all the time; Gianna’s shopping around for her fourth, and nobody asks her if she loves any of them. How come the High Table gets to send someone to stalk you all over the damn place and ask about shit that’s nobody’s business but yours?” He stops, looking embarrassed at his own outburst. It sounds like he’s been holding it in for a while.

John is touched.

“I appreciate the concern,” he says sincerely.

Cassian shrugs, avoiding eye contact. “Not like it helps,” he says. “You’ve got it hard enough as it is without the Investigator. Look at who you married.”

“He’s not so bad.”

“Sure about that?”

“Yeah,” John says. “I am. But thanks for checking in.” He clasps Cassian on the shoulder before either of them can dig themselves a deeper hole, and goes to find a nice catacomb to exacerbate his paranoia with.

The day passes so fast he barely remembers doing anything. Luggage is sent on to the Continental. Back rooms at the venue are swept for dust and surveillance equipment, candles lit and clothes laid out for the evening. John talks to guards, walks the crumbling hallways where the sun streams through holes in dust-hazed rays that a decent sniper could certainly sight into (he briefly wishes Marcus was here, and then tells himself he’s caused his old mentor more than enough trouble).

A light, tense lunch is held in Gianna’s dressing room, the family’s closest guards perched on the edges of seats and the giant spa bath, balancing plates of pasta and bread as Gianna gives the last of her orders and updates them on late confirmations of attendance. Santino stands close to the door, speaking about as much as Ares does. He barely eats; it’s often been the case with him these last few weeks. His shoulder presses against John’s and John steals glances at him, feeling his own face settle into the lines of worry that have grown familiar in the time since the will was read.

The Investigator sits on the edge of the giant bath, watching the room as a whole. John catches her eye for a moment that jolts his insides sickeningly. He considers putting an arm around Santino, and then doesn’t. He barely has enough time to eat before going back to the preparations, and neither of them has the energy to do more than what duty requires right now.

They’re not being convincing. But how can they, when all they can manage right now is to lean on each other and hope not to fall?

Evening comes. John ducks into the Continental on a last minute errand to see the sommelier and add another knife to his collection. He stops by the room he’ll be sharing with Santino. The suitcases have been brought up, sitting neatly across the room by the wardrobe. He’s hit with a moment of déjà vu. He remembers the night of his second wedding. Too many candles, Winston’s mocking gift of rose petals scattered on the bedcovers. A terrible start, but the rest…was good. The rest he doesn’t regret in the slightest.

And then the moment is gone, and John is focused. He strips. Showers, combs his hair back, dresses himself in black. Shirt, pants, belt, jacket, tie, socks, shoes. Knives in sheaths at his ankles and wrists. Two loaded Glocks, holstered against his ribs and the small of his back.

Back at the D’Antonio estate, the lights have been lit and the guests are starting to arrive. John takes a back entrance, nodding stiffly at the guards. One of them catches him as he passes.

“The Signora wants to talk to you,” he says.

“Now?”

“_Sì, signor Wick_.”

Gianna always knows how to pick her moments, and now is not the time to refuse her anything. John abandons any idea of watching the guests filter out into the open venue, checking faces and watching for weapons. Or of going straight to Santino to check he hasn’t lost his mind just yet. Resigned to whatever fate is in store for him, he makes for Gianna’s private rooms.

She’s sitting in front of a mirror, tidying her makeup, talking over her shoulder to Cassian where he stands watch at the door. The giant hot tub has been switched on, steam curling gently around the center of the room. It lends a haze to the hundreds of candles scattered all over the room, and to the mirrors reflecting every corner. Cassian breaks off the conversation as John approaches, politely holding the door open, tugging it closed behind John. There’s nothing especially dire in his expression. Still, John enters the room feeling hunted.

Gianna glitters; her natural extravagance is pushed to extremes, exacerbated by an occasion in which restraint would be truly unnecessary. She drips diamond earrings from earlobe to collarbone. Her sequined dress makes her a perfect target for a sniper at range. For a drone strike. For anyone with half-decent eyesight, a gun, and a grudge. Which covers a truly extraordinary number of people.

But that’s Cassian’s problem. John gives her a polite nod, watching ambivalent as she turns in the mirror.

“How do I look?” she asks.

“Bright.”

Gianna laughs. “Literal as usual. Cassian is more effusive with his praise.” She reaches for a white jacket draped over a nearby chair. It’s some kind of fur; Gianna runs her palm over it gently.

“Fox,” she says, though John doesn’t ask. “A gift from a would-be suitor; he chose the animals himself, for the purity of their coats. All for me. I have been wanting to wear it for months now, but to do so would have been to show too much favour. That doesn’t matter anymore; I wear what I please. And I do enjoy beautiful things.” The jacket stays draped over the chair. Gianna turns away from it, offering her arm to John instead. Unasked, he takes it.

“Will you take a walk with me?” she asks. “I promise to return you undamaged, in body if not in soul.”

It’s not a good idea. It’s also not a choice; the coronation hasn’t happened yet, but Gianna is on the High Table either way. The party’s just an excuse to make sure everyone knows it. There’s no refusing her.

But they are friends. Have been for years, and as far as John knows nothing’s changed on that front. He opens the door to let Gianna through, nodding at Cassian where he stands outside.

“We’re walking on the second level,” Gianna tells him. “I need some air. No guards; I am perfectly safe in John’s care. You’re free to go and check on the preparations.”

“Of course, Signora,” Cassian says. He throws John a confused look; _what’s going on here?_ John responds with a baffled shrug. Gianna takes his arm again, leading him out from the stone-lined rooms, the dancing candlelight. Outside, the grassy courtyard is dark. It won’t be needed for the party; no one other than Gianna’s staff is permitted to come this way, but she dislikes the idea of ugly signs and warnings. Instead, she leaves certain areas unlit, and trusts to her guards to discreetly redirect the over-curious.

There are stairs leading up to the second level. Their footsteps are quiet on the old stone. Gianna takes the lead.

“It will be a beautiful evening,” she says. “The weather is…perfect. Everything I could have asked for. You know, I have anticipated this day my whole life; more than I looked forward to my wedding day, even. Any of them.”

“I hope it’s what you wanted.”

“It will be,” she says. “Because it is _mine_. I share this with no one; not my father, not my husbands. Not my jealous little brother – and don’t try to tell me he isn’t jealous. I know him. I always have. The only mystery is that he hasn’t found a way to make you kill me.”

“I wouldn’t,” John says automatically. “You’re family.”

“And does this mean I am protected?” Gianna asks. She watches him very closely. “I will never need to check in my closet and under my bed for the Boogeyman?”

“It does.”

“Good,” she says, satisfied. “I wondered. He was so pleased about the marriage, as if it was some great coup, something he had planned for a long time. And I was initially more than pleased to see him surrender so great an advantage with so little struggle. Until I realised what it might mean for me. My brother, who hates me, marrying the most famous assassin in the world.”

“He doesn’t hate you.”

“I don’t hate him. But we _hurt_ each other, John. Every day, in a thousand new and devastating ways, we hurt each other. It will never be enough. It never ends. So what does it matter if we do not hate each other? I would not inflict this treatment on my worst enemy. Perhaps it would be better if hatred was all we felt; we might be spared the cruelty of love. And all I can say is, I hope to god he never turns that kind of love on you.”

“I doubt it,” John says. “But it he does, I can handle it.”

Floating through the quiet night, John hears the musicians testing their instruments. There’s a constant background hum he identifies as conversation, laughter. The guests must have arrived. In ten minutes or so, Gianna will go to meet them. And Santino will be there with her, a loyal shadow. The family united at last.

“Do you ever wonder why I didn’t offer to marry you?” Gianna asks. “Why I was so quick let my brother…” _Fall on the grenade_ is implied in her smile. John doesn’t blame her. She’s absolutely right.

“You knew better,” he says. “It was dangerous. And not your problem.”

“No. It wasn’t our problem. And if we had just cast you out into the street to die, the will would have been read much sooner. Some of the chaos in Napoli might have been averted. I did consider it; I hope you won’t hold that against me.”

“No. It makes sense.”

“But you have to understand something.” They come upon a set of stairs leading downwards into eerie green-tinged darkness, bypassing the first level entirely; the catacombs yawn like some gargantuan lion, like some portal into a deep and endless abyss. “Our power base was…_is_ precarious. It always has been. And it will be years before we can prove once and for all that we are strong even without our father; he was the Camorra’s figurehead for much too long, and in his absence there is doubt. We can succeed. But not easily.”

Gianna stares down at the steps. She makes no move to take them; if she does, John will put up at least a token protest.

“A High Table seat is not a lifetime guarantee,” Gianna says abruptly. “Did you know that?”

“I didn’t.”

“It is very rare for a seat to be stripped from its owner, but it has happened. When a member of the organisation they represent grows so powerful that they overshadow the rightful ruler.”

John works through this new information. He wonders if Santino knows, and then decides that he does. Of course he does. The fact that it hasn’t come up at all suggests that he must consider it an unlikely eventuality. Something almost impossible to plan for, however much he might believe he could do a better job than Gianna with the seat.

“He could do it,” Gianna says. “My brother. If he could calm his temperament, his passionate nature, enough to truly focus for a decade or so, he could do it. And it would take far less time if he had married into another powerful family who might support his goal; the triads crave a second High Table seat, and the cartels are always hungry. The Nigerians argue, rightly so, that they have attained enough prominence to _deserve_ a seat. I know Santino had offers. Every time a new one came, I was sick with fear. What he could do, if he stopped thinking with his heart and started using his head.”

And how much of a relief it must have been, when Santino marched into her home one evening with a washed up assassin and took care of the problem for her. Whatever John’s reputation might have been, and however many people feared him, he’s just one man. Retired. Grieving. Desperate. Unattached to any powerful family that might provide a stepping stone to Gianna’s level.

“I was the best option,” John says out loud. “For you, at least. Safer.”

Gianna smiles. “My impulsive little brother, removing the venom in his fangs before my very eyes. No powerful family ties. No _children_, which would have been a disaster as well. Just you. I am very fond of you, John; we are, and I hope will always be friends. But marrying you crippled Santino. And I am glad of it.”

“You don’t know if it’ll last,” John reminds her. “A couple of years was the agreement. Just until the High Table decides to leave me alone. Things change.”

It’s the truth, but he finds he doesn’t like how it feels in his mouth. Bitter, sickening; laced with a poison he’s never tasted before and struggles to identify. The prospect of separation from Santino is something he should look forward to. He was promised a return to peace. A second retirement. He should want that.

But the price seems so much higher than it did on the day of his wedding, and he is no longer sure of what he wants.

“I didn’t know if you would survive the investigation,” Gianna admits. “Although I swear to you, I did my best. I have never lied so well in my life. The rest was up to you and Santino, and I admit to being surprised. I think you will win. You’ve done enough to cast doubt where there should have been certainty.”

“It hasn’t been easy.”

“And it’s not going to end.” Gianna turns away from the darkened staircase, back to the open stars. She sighs. “The Investigator will probably declare in your favour. Fine; you have bought yourself some freedom. But even the High Table’s judgements come with checks and balances. One year from the day of his accusation, Viggo can appeal a decision he believes incorrect.”

John almost stumbles on the uneven stone. “What?”

“Yes. If he is willing to spend the money, the resources, he can bribe enough members of the Table to allow for a vote in his favour. He can appeal. And then the whole thing begins all over again.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” John says, abruptly furious. “Then what was the point? The questions, the…humiliation-”

He thinks about the Continental hotel cameras, the footage he’s never seen, which sits in the possession of someone he doesn’t know. It shouldn’t matter. But it does. There are things on that footage no one else has a right to see; moments he doesn’t want to share. “If we’re convincing enough _now_, why would a year of marriage change anything?”

Gianna watches him with pity. “Because you only have to slip once, John. One public argument that goes too far. One separation, even temporary. One indication, however slight, that you and Santino are anything other than devoted to each other. And a year is a very long time; I speak as someone who knows you both. You didn’t want this, John. How long before the resentment festers beyond your control? And as for Santino - all the things that he values, he destroys. He can’t help himself. How long before he burns you alive?”

There’s no possible answer to either of those questions, and John has never been much good at predicting the future. He can speak for himself, in the moment; he knows exactly how far he can push his body before it fails him, and can make a decent guess for his enemies. He can guess which people he can trust, and which might betray him when times get lean. And for his own future, he can hope that he doesn’t go down without a fight.

He could kill Santino if he had to. He has no doubt that Santino could kill him.

But if they ever reach that stage, nothing the High Table does will matter in the slightest.

Gianna slips her arm through his again. She starts to lead them back towards the stairs to the ground level, walking slowly. “I will help you, if I can,” she says. “Though I think it will take longer than a year. I need to work slowly, but Viggo has nothing left to lose. Be patient. Be _careful_. If there is any way at all to help you, then I will find it, in time. I have never forgotten my friends.”

She’ll want something in exchange for her efforts, of course. It’s always like that in the mob. Always. And there are very good reasons why John has always chosen Santino over Gianna when asking favours. Only one of them plays by rules he can understand, though barely. Gianna is a mystery all on her own. He doesn’t know what she’ll want in repayment. It must be sizeable, if she deems it worth the cost of freeing Santino as well. And John just can’t see it. He doesn’t understand.

But he’s starting to think it might be time to reconsider his personal definition of freedom.

They walk in silence from there, until worn old stone becomes well-kept grass, and the hall to Gianna’s rooms is in sight. The candles dance against the sequins of her dress. She’ll outshine anyone tonight. And that’s the whole point.

From the direction of her rooms, John hears a shout. He flinches; at his side, Gianna gasps.

“Cassian,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“_Go_ to him, John.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” John says. “Not while you’re in my care. He buys time to get you to safety.” He grabs her arm, ready to pull her in the opposite direction; they have three safe rooms around the grounds, heavy steel doors and weapons and communications equipment. Access to the cameras. The closest is a thirty second run from where they are, and even in her dress he doesn’t doubt Gianna can keep up with him.

There’s another shout. This time, the tone gets through. Cassian is outraged.

A dog barks.

“Oh,” Gianna says. “Oh no. _What_ has that terrible animal done this time?” She hikes her dress up to ankle height and runs in the direction of Cassian’s voice. John follows at her heels.

Cassian is crouched by one of the couches in Gianna’s private rooms, a fistful of white fabric in his hands. He pulls gently, but something under the couch is refusing to budge. It growls. Cassian gives another tug. He glances up as Gianna enters the room.

“I don’t know how it got in here,” he says. “Guess it saw the door was left open and came in. I am so sorry, Signora, it’s…” he gestures helplessly at the white thing, which John now identifies as Gianna’s jacket. Somewhat more tattered than when she showed it off to him; tufts of fox fur litter the handwoven rug and the tiles around it.

“That jacket was my favourite,” Gianna says, ice in her voice. “And I had not even worn it yet. But somehow, of all the places it might have wandered, the dog comes here? Somehow it eats a gift that I was so pleased with, and that I showed off to-” Her breath catches, fury taking over.

_Santino,_ John supplies silently. He crouches by the couch, nudging a grateful Cassian out of the way. In the shadows, the dog watches him with big brown eyes. It gnaws at the fox fur with a speed that suggests it knows it’s about to lose the new favourite toy.

John tries not to laugh. His ribs ache from the effort of keeping his expression neutral.

“I am so sorry,” he says. “Not sure it can be salvaged.” It’s covered in drool, creased and growing tatty under the couch. The guilt in the dog’s expression. It’s the funniest thing John has seen in a long time.

“I have a spare,” Gianna snarls. “Unless my _worthless_ brother fed that to some other piece of wildlife he found on the street. John, get that dog out of my rooms before I kick it.”

“You don’t know it was your brother,” Cassian says as John coaxes the dog out from under the couch. He doesn’t tug at the ragged coat; that’s just encouraging the game. Instead, he clicks his tongue and offers his fingers until the dog slinks out to nuzzle them with a sigh. “I left the door open in case you came back before I did. Maybe it got curious.”

“And what are the chances of that?”

“It might have been looking for me,” John offers. “Just got distracted.”

“Take the dog away _now_, John. I’ll have it drowned in the pool if I have to look at it any longer.”

John grabs the dog by its collar, hauling it out of the room, the jacket still in its mouth. Its tail beats bruises into his legs, lifting dust from the stone walls where it strikes. Out of sight of Gianna, he lets it go. It seems perfectly happy to follow at his heels as long as he doesn’t try to take its toy away.

He’s not sure he could bring himself to.

Down the hallway, he taps his knuckles against another set of heavy doors. Polished oak, decorative bronze. One of them opens to reveal Ares. John suppresses a sigh.

_What do you want?_ she asks.

_This is my room too. _He doesn’t mention the dog, which squeezes through the half-open door and past her ankles, disappearing into the room beyond. The jacket it’s dragging is starting to look grey around the edges.

_He wants quiet._

_I can do that._

Ares’ mouth is tight, furious. The same expression she always wears for him these days. They’ve never been friends. It’s understandable. She was Santino’s chief of security, his fixer, his most trusted guard. And John was the foreign interloper, borrowed at high cost from Russian mobsters and given the choicest jobs, the riskiest missions, the glory. He stole work from her. Stole her thunder, her chance to build a name. Stole her master’s praise and respect, because who else would ever impress him after he’d seen John Wick?

She resents that, and he understands.

But this fury is something else. John remembers a time when she was at least capable of civility. They could talk. There was respect. Now he looks at her and wonders when that soured to hatred.

_He’s coping_, she signs, as if John needs to be told. _He’s doing good. You need to be careful._

_I know._

_Do not fuck him up again._

John leans forward, resting a hand on the door to keep Ares from slamming it in his face. She pushes back; he can see the strain in her face, feel it matched in his arm. They stare at each other. But John is stronger, and in the end the door begins to budge, moving inexorably inwards. Finally, Ares lets go. She lets the door open, blocking the entry with her body instead.

_Do not fuck him up_, she signs again. _What you did five years ago was bad enough. You can’t do that again._

_I didn’t, _John starts signing back, and then gives up when she openly turns her head away and refuses to look. She moves out of the way with a mocking little bow, letting him into the room. And then steps out into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind her.

Santino’s rooms are not like his sister’s. Gone is the heated pool, the swathes of candles and towering mirrors. The grim stone walls wear enormous artworks like couture, modern and mesmerising in their strangeness. Bold splashes of colour, lines and harsh shapes, unique and unrelenting in their demands for attention. Several marble sculptures stand in sharp contrast; classical mythology, a nod to the greats. Santino has bookshelves, couches, a chess board in one corner.

The room is as much of a performance as Gianna’s, but John finds himself comfortable in it anyway. More so when he spots Santino in front of the single mirror, draping a beautiful tie around his neck, deep blue with silver threaded patterns. Smiling down at the dog sitting next to him, still stubbornly gnawing on Gianna’s furs.

“Where did you find that, hm?” Santino asks. “I hope you did not steal it from a guest.”

“From your sister,” John says. “She thinks you might have had something to do with it.”

Santino turns, throwing him an amused look. “And if I had the time and energy to do such a thing, maybe I would have. But for once I am guiltless. Ares will tell you that I have not left my…_our_ rooms since we arrived.”

John believes him. Not because he thinks Santino would have too much dignity to pull a stupid stunt like this one; more because he recognises the fake smile and the shadows under the pale eyes. The listless way he gets to work on his tie.

“Let me,” John says, taking it from Santino’s hands. There’s no fight; that worries him, but many things do these days.

“Lucky for us that it did not rob a guest,” Santino mutters, glancing again at the dog and the remains of Gianna’s jacket. “I am not in the mood for groveling.”

“It’s fine. She has a spare.”

“Then I won’t bother to apologise.”

“I already did. It’s fox fur, apparently.”

Santino rolls his eyes. “I know, she showed me. From a suitor. How she will find time for a fourth husband with her work at the High Table, I have no idea. _We_ will be far too busy to attend the wedding. She has such high standards for speeches, I have run out of things to say. Apparently ‘may you live longer than your many predecessors’ is unacceptable for a happy occasion.”

“Winston gives a good speech,” John suggests. “I liked the one he did for us. Said everything he needed to.”

Santino laughs wryly. It lifts the shadows from him for a few seconds. Unprompted, acting on impulse, John kisses his forehead.

“You’re doing good,” he says quietly. “Not much longer now.”

“I’m fine. I will do my duty, as always. Smile, praise my sister to the heavens. Tell everyone that I am _happy_ with the outcome. I’ll be good.”

John tugs the beautiful tie straight. He smooths it down with his fingers, watching the pattern shift with the light. It makes him smile a little. He’ll never understand Santino’s taste in most things, but he can appreciate the outcomes. “Just survive the evening,” he says.

“And the days that follow.”

It feels like a good time to tell him.

“Doesn’t matter,” John says. “We won’t be here.” Santino’s expression is well worth the trouble of keeping things secret. “We’re overdue a honeymoon. Gianna can host her own celebration parties.”

Santino shakes his head, “She’ll be furious.”

“Send her my way,” John says. “I take full responsibility. Are you in?”

Santino stares at him, looking for confirmation that this is a serious question, not some kind of joke. As if John would ever be anything less than serious about this. “There are expectations, customs. I am required to spend the next week at Gianna’s side. To stand in her shadow while she bathes herself in glory and reminds me _constantly_ that this is her birthright, not mine. It is how the winner cements their power over the competitors; a ritual humiliation, to stabilise the hierarchy. This is how things are done.”

“Not by me,” John says patiently. “Are you in?”

“John. She will take it as an insult. The repercussions-”

“Won’t happen,” John says. He takes his hands off Santino’s tie, settling them on his shoulders, squeezing gently. “It was my idea. No one’s going to hold it against you when you remind them who you married.”

Santino inhales slowly. There’s a smile forming at the corners of his lips. Reluctant, but he’s not doing anything to stop it. “The Boogeyman.”

“Are you in?”

“I…yeah. Alright.”

“Good,” John says. “Perfect. We’re leaving at seven tomorrow morning. Send Ares and her crew back to Naples, we won’t need them.”

Santino raises his eyebrows “No guards?”

“I can protect my own husband for five days.” John squeezes Santino’s shoulders again, watching the understanding sink in.

He’s offering to work. Yes, it’s a vacation, an escape of sorts. A retreat to the stolen moments of peace between the two of them, a gamble John hopes will pay off in the form of recovery. But he’s also offering to work. There will be no guards to fall back on. It’s falling on him. He’s aware of what that signifies. Santino is his husband; for a week, he’ll also be John’s ward. That has meaning in the underworld.

He’s offering anyway.

“Alright,” Santino says, quieter this time. He gives the traditional assent, as if John needs to hear it from him. But there are customs. “John Wick. I entrust my safety to you; put my life in your hands, and believe that you will preserve it with greater care than your own. I trust you to live in my shadow, and die in my service. To take my secrets to the grave. I will be your ward, and you will belong to me. Though Ares is going to throw a fit.”

“She’s right.”

“She will learn to trust you,” Santino says. “As I do.” He tilts his head up, kissing John’s cheek, then the corner of his lips, his mouth, lingering with a hesitation that leaves them both breathing shallowly by the time they part.

John pulls away before temptation sends him back for more. He holds out a hand. “Gianna was almost ready to go. You coming?”

“You ask as if there is any choice in the matter.” Santino glances down at the dog, still blissfully occupied in gnawing the stolen furs. But it’ll be fine; there are bowls of food and water in one corner of the room, and the door will be left ajar in case it wants to go for a walk. No doubt they’ll come back and find it passed out on one of Santino’s most expensive shirts. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Together, they head out from the private back rooms and towards the noise of the guests, the musicians, growing as they approach. Santino reflexively straightens his own tie. John checks his weapons, then checks them again.

They pause behind an archway, the amphitheater just beyond, waiting in the shadows for Gianna. Their timing is perfect; she emerges from her own rooms a few seconds later, trailing guards. Her jacket is white, lovely even without the fox fur. John suspects there’s no point telling her that.

“I had a word with the wait staff,” he mutters out of the corner of his mouth as Gianna crosses the grass. “We’re getting sparkling grape juice all evening. No champagne. No alcohol at all. Don’t bother asking.”

“You expect me to survive this evening sober?” Santino asks. His lips barely move, but he doesn’t look pleased. “I thought you were on my side.”

“I am. We’re not safe here. I need you to help me watch the crowd. You see a gun, a knife, a…grenade launcher, tell me.”

“And so begins the night from hell.” Santino says, unimpressed. “You will make it up to me on the honeymoon.”

“Anything you want.”

“Such a generous offer, _amore mio_. I look forward to making you regret it.” Santino pastes an insincere smile on his face as Gianna joins them, submitting to the kisses she presses to his cheeks. “And here she is; the woman of the hour.”

“Not just the hour,” Gianna says with a far more convincing smile. “The night, the week, the rest of my life. There is nothing you can do to ruin this for me, Santino. I have been patient, and this is my reward. I intend to enjoy it.” She doesn’t wait for a response. Glittering in her sequins, she steps through the archway and out into the crowds beyond.


	12. No Rules, No Obstacles

It’s a hell that masquerades as heaven; the lights are blinding, searing John’s vision in whites and golds, leaving haloes stamped across his retinas. The music swells louder even than the hubbub of the crowd, and the crowd is enormous. A guest list in the hundreds, family, friends and strangers, unknown factors, threats behind every smile. Representatives from close to home; the Mafia, the ‘Ndrangheta, the larger Camorra clans. Tempers running high. John walks out with his sight impaired, hearing useless, instincts awake and wailing like sirens.

He hates parties. It’s been years since he was forced to remember exactly why.

Behind him, Ares stalks with a murderous look and hands that keep dropping to weapons. Up ahead, he can just make out Cassian’s stiff shoulders behind Gianna, his discomfort plain in the linger of his hand at the edge of his jacket under which his holster sits. He’s having to watch his step; Gianna walks at her own pace on the red carpet, and the rest follow her lead. And Gianna is on nobody’s time but her own.

She’s magnificent. The sequined dress gleams like fish scales, like mermaid skin under the lights, and her diamonds gleam with it. She catches every eye; turns her head, smiling at the faces she knows, reaching out occasionally to touch her closest friends and allies like a holy woman granting benediction. She’s pissed off a good third of the people around her at some point or another, and the only thing her enemies can do to her now is beg for her forgiveness.

At John’s side, Santino wears a dazzling smile he must have practiced in a mirror. He looks genuinely thrilled to be where he is, five steps behind his sister, letting her set the pace. The hand he has tucked into John’s elbow digs deep enough that it’ll probably bruise. John doesn’t wince. He gets it.

“You okay?” he breathes into Santino’s ear. Gianna pauses momentarily to exchange greetings with a man John places as a high-ranking cartel boss, and they’re forced to pause with her, waiting until she’s done.

“Of course,” Santino murmurs. His smile doesn’t change. His eyes are frozen. “How could I not be? This is the happiest day of my sister’s life; I am overjoyed for her.”

John nods, as if he buys that for even a second. “She looks good,” he says. “The jacket almost matches.”

Startled, Santino chokes back a laugh he clearly wasn’t expecting. “I hear it was not her first choice,” he murmurs. “Such a sad chain of events.” They glance at each other. John has to work to keep a straight face. Must be the tension, the stress. He’s normally a lot more professional than this.

He thinks about their dog, tucked away in a back room in blissful peace with a rag of tattered fox fur that the queen herself could not make it relinquish. The urge to laugh is actually painful, made worse by the brief, genuine humour on Santino’s face. It suits him so much more than the lie he was wearing before. And it’s so tempting to lean over and kiss him, to trace the form of his amusement through touch alone. John considers it. He lingers overlong on the thought, glancing between Santino’s eyes and his mouth, reflexively breathing shallow.

“Not here,” Santino says, lips hardly moving. He’s right; Gianna won’t thank them for stealing her thunder, however unintentionally. And the D’Antonio enemies don’t need to see so genuine an intimacy. There are so many reasons why John can’t kiss his husband here.

Still, he turns away with regret.

There are a lot of faces John doesn’t recognise, though every person who looks at him wears some kind of recognition. They’ve heard the stories, or their families have. Maybe he killed their relatives. Maybe the threat of him forced them to hand over territories. Or maybe they’re from the innumerable Camorra clans, plotting downfall for the ruling family, their plans set back by Santino’s sudden marriage. Gianna thinks her brother was weakened by it, but Gianna thinks on a different level, and she’s not always right in her guesses. John sees fear, apprehension, hesitation, and knows that his legacy lives on, as strong as it ever was.

There’s a brief, nasty moment where they pass Viggo, surrounded by tattooed bratva VIPs. Avi stands at his back, Perkins in his shadow. They see John over Gianna’s shoulder, her bland welcome.

There’s no hate in Viggo’s expression. He watches John with a wry twist to his mouth, an amused fatalism; the world’s gone and fucked him over, and there’s nothing he can do about it now. His son is dead. His old hellhound wears a mob crown. And by now he must be feeling the pinch of losing the vault John set on fire; the blackmail material, illicit land deeds, contracts of the kind best kept locked up. He’ll be suffering. But still he manages a smile for Gianna and a nod for Santino. He takes his defeat with a lot more grace than most would. Which means he’s probably planning something.

Farther back from the crowds, mingling in the shadows with the security guards, John spots the Investigator. He wonders just how much of a hard time she gave Julius. Whether she found flaw in everything he had to tell her.

She’s been everywhere over the last few weeks. Always in a doorway, watching from a distance. Watching him try to reach Santino, more successful on some days than others. Watching them both tread carefully around Gianna, united in how badly they handle change. Watching and writing notes no one can decipher.

John’s given up on faking it for her benefit. Santino’s the liar, and Santino doesn’t have the energy for anything other than ill-contained grief, and an ocean of rage he can barely conceal. It seems cruel to demand that he take time to play up their romance. John touches him when he feels like it; gives him sympathy or patience when it’s called for, and kisses him when they both want it, whether the Investigator’s watching them or not.

He doesn’t share Gianna’s confidence that they’ve convinced. But he does believe she’s almost decided. And if she has, there’s not much more they can do to sway her. He sets his focus instead to being what Santino needs: loyal. Honest. Committed. It’s all he has.

At last the red carpet feeds out to a set of stairs leading up to the stage. Behind them, the guards are strategically removing the iron fences that kept the guests at bay while Gianna entered. There’ll be mingling now; the buffet is being brought forward, waiters emerging with loaded trays of drinks, canapes, cigars, cocaine. Passing them out liberally as Gianna climbs to the stage with Cassian behind her, kissing the musicians fondly and inviting them to begin.

Then she returns to the ground, ready to get back to her guests, now she’s made her point about allegiances and hierarchies. She slows just a little as she passes John, tilting her head to address Santino in a low voice.

“Mister Akoni sent a personal message with his RSVP,” she says. “He would like a word about…a recent business deal I have made with his generals. You can handle it, can’t you?”

Santino’s smile doesn’t match his tone. “I thought we had agreed not to act against him yet,” he says.

“We did agree,” Gianna says. “And then I changed my mind. Speak to him, Santino. I won’t have time.”

She slips into the crowd; behind her, Cassian catches John’s eye and mouths an apology. John shrugs. This, at least, is not a surprise. The pettiness is almost reassuring for how familiar it is.

He turns his head to speak into Santino’s ear. “So we don’t have to follow her all night.”

“No,” Santino says. “Thankfully. I am already tired of being blinded by her dress. We will speak with her guests, as many as we can. And this is the part where you begin to seriously regret marrying me; my obligations are yours now. Smile, John. It only gets worse from here.”

“Good to know,” John says with a sigh. He lets Santino pull him into the throng, and doesn’t quite manage the smile.

There are some familiar faces; Julius is in attendance, clasping Santino’s hand and greeting him sincerely. Older members of the Mafia greet John with familiar nods. A middle-aged woman in the ‘Ndrangheta points at the patch over her missing right eye, grinning as John stiffens. He took it from her, he remembers. Years ago. But the grudge seems long abandoned, and she moves on to investigate the buffet tables. He spots Avi in close discussion with a suited triad lawyer, Perkins pretending she enjoys being his bodyguard. It’s surprising to see her still alive. Winston must be furious.

There are others who ignore him, approaching Gianna alone. The Director appears in a clatter of beads and satin; she takes Gianna’s hands in hers and says something John can’t make out. When she’s finished, she makes for one of the exits. Not once does she look John’s way.

A blond man spends more time at Gianna’s side than the rest, and instinctively John looks for Sofia in his shadow. But that’s a memory; a relic of the past. He pushes it aside. Sofia isn’t here, more’s the pity, but her old master is being charming, coaxing loud laughter from Gianna, only unconvincing to those who know how she actually laughs when she means it. She puts up with his attentions. John wonders, briefly and without much interest, if he’s looking at the source of the ruined jacket. The rumoured fourth husband; Berrada, master of coin. But that’s Gianna’s business, and he doesn’t care enough to ask.

The crowd grows heavier. John is forced to release Santino’s arm, and they inevitably end up separated. He doesn’t worry too much; Ares won’t let herself be cut out, and they’re all better off if Santino isn’t the one who greets Viggo.

Because Viggo is here. Standing in John’s path, a tumbler of vodka in one hand, the other spread in welcome.

“Hello, John,” he says. “What a party this is. Do pass on my gratitude to the hostess; in my fallen state, I doubt she will stoop low enough to actually speak with me again. Not when she can send you instead.”

John doesn’t reply. It’s not that the implied insult doesn’t cut; _you were my dog before, and you’re still a dog now, however gold your collar_. It does cut, as it’s meant to. But there’s nothing he wants to say in response, and he doesn’t feel like being near Viggo any longer.

And then he spots the familiar face at his old master’s shoulder; a scowl John has never seen fade, because even when he’s happy Kirill looks murderous. It’s all part of his charm. The brace he’s wearing around his neck is incredibly satisfying to see.

“Didn’t I kill you?” John asks mildly.

Kirill gives a humourless bark of laughter. “You tried. But not hard enough.”

“I’ll do better next time. How long have you been back at work?”

“Hours. I flew in for the coronation.”

“Not that I don’t trust the lovely Gianna’s security,” Viggo says. “But I prefer to keep my own. Especially with John around. I get the feeling he’s not very fond of me these days - and the feeling is mutual.”

“You brought it on yourself,” John says, no longer calm. “I’ll remember that when the investigation ends.” He catches confusion on Kirill’s face. “Viggo didn’t tell you?”

“No,” Kirill says shortly. “What investigation?”

John’s getting tired of repeating the story. “I got married a month ago. Viggo believes it’s faked to avoid the High Table’s retribution.”

“With who?”

“Santino D’Antonio,” Viggo says with a laugh. “If you can believe it.”

Kirill is still for a moment. Thoughtful. Then, he nods. “Yeah. Okay. Not surprising. You got back together?”

John feels a little like the ground is slipping away under his feet. Like he no longer has any idea what normality looks like. First Marcus. Now Kirill. “I didn’t realise you knew.”

“I worked with you for a long time,” Kirill says. “You were loyal. You never failed. So I stayed silent. Whatever people say about our kind, we are still only men. Our weapons are steel; we are not. It happens. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” John says reflexively. And then inhales sharply, trying to rebalance himself. To realign his view of the world, his memories. He was so careful. So sure that no one would look beyond the kill count, the unending chain of successful missions, the reputation, _the Boogeyman_. So sure no one was noticing the man underneath. Viggo never did. Giuseppe D’Antonio, and all the others like them, they never did. And so he assumed he was hidden.

“Interesting,” says someone behind him. John almost jumps out of his skin. He turns to find the Investigator at his shoulder, ever-present notebook and pen at the ready.

“Most people think it’s a bad idea to sneak up on me,” he tells her. She doesn’t blink.

“The High Table feels otherwise,” she says. “And I wasn’t sneaking. You were distracted. Bad habits, Mister Wick. You’ll need to be more careful if you want your husband to survive the years to come. And _you_,” she says to Kirill. “I have questions.”

“He works for me,” Viggo says coldly. “You go through me with your questions. And I don’t think I will allow them; he was badly injured, by John here. Perhaps I brought him out of recovery too soon.”

“You started this investigation, Mister Tarasov,” the Investigator says. “But I will finish it. With or without your approval. Your bodyguard will come with me, and I will return him when I have finished. Don’t interfere.”

John backs away before he can be dragged into more questions. He lets the movement of the crowd carry him, slipping between silk and velvet, on the lookout for the shapes of weaponry under coats, looking just as carefully for Santino’s shape in the crowd. Finding him in what looks to be unpleasant conversation with a man John absently identifies as an enemy of the family. Drug smuggling through nightclubs, spreading fast across New York, treading on toes. Annoying Santino from the looks of it; John interrupts the conversation without grace, slipping his arm through his husband’s.

“John,” Santino says, glancing at him. “There you are. Excuse me, Mister Akoni. I am needed elsewhere. I do encourage you to bring your concerns to my sister; I am sure she will find them as entertaining as I have.” He turns away, tugging John with him.

“Good talk?” John asks.

“Gianna made a move against him,” Santino said shortly. “Though we had agreed to wait until…never mind. I can’t be out here any longer, John. I’m suffocating. Just a few minutes of peace, I beg of you.”

It’s not unexpected. John’s surprised he made it this far into the evening without starting to threaten murder.

“This way,” he says promptly, leading Santino towards the nearest darkened archway, ignoring the guards that nod at them both as they pass. The lighting grows dimmer, the sound somewhat muffled by high stone walls. They could stop just around the corner; give Santino his time to breathe, to get himself under control. But he’s been doing incredibly well, and John doesn’t want to shove him into the nearest quiet spot and tell him to get a grip. He deserves better. They head further away from the crowds, back into the covered halls that hold the private rooms.

John pauses briefly, touching his earpiece to activate the speaker. “Cassian,” he says. “John here.”

“Copy that,” says Cassian’s voice, crackling.

“I’m out of the main venue,” John says. He doesn’t struggle as Santino pulls away from him, taking a right instead of the left that’ll lead to his own rooms. Follows in his wake, ignoring the urge to stop him. “Going for a walk. Santino’s with me.”

“Good to know. I don’t need the details.”

John touches a small button on the earpiece, silencing it. He slips it into a pocket, a breach of professionalism that he would never have condoned in his past life. But he’s coming to understand that sometimes there’s nothing to do but compromise. Santino doesn’t need a guard right now. He needs a man who can listen.

John doesn’t comment as Santino leads them to Gianna’s rooms. The door is slightly ajar; they both slip through, John tugging it closed in their wake. He stands in the entryway, glancing around, focusing on the shadows in the corners and the steam from the tub. The mirrors reflect no movement other than their own. He watches Santino settle down on a leather bench in front of one of the largest.

“You okay?” John asks.

Santino makes a dismissive gesture. He looks at himself, at his own reflection. Whatever he sees doesn’t seem to please him. “No. But it doesn’t matter.”

“If you say so.”

“I could not smile for one second longer; all those people, with their false praise, their complaints, their lies. Nothing I have not seen before, but I find myself hating them so much more tonight.”

“They’re Gianna’s problem now,” John points out.

Santino smiles, mirthless. “Small mercies.” He folds his hands in his lap, lowering his head, closing his eyes. A stranger might mistake it for prayer, but John knows him far too well for that. He waits for Santino to get his head back together. His impromptu plans for the rest of the week are looking like a better idea by the moment, and he finds himself seriously looking forward to the prospect of escape. They both need it. They need it so much.

“Any chance I can convince you to go back out to the party without me?” Santino asks. He sits up, stretching in the mirror. John watches the line of his back, his perfectly styled hair, and aches to cross the room and touch his husband. He keeps himself in check, but it’s a close thing.

“No,” John says. “Sorry.” He reaches for the door. Behind him, Santino sighs.

“Forgive me if I am in no hurry to return to Gianna’s idea of music.”

“You have to be seen.”

“I know. It is my punishment.” Santino stands, pulling his tie straight. “I would suggest that we linger here so you can fuck me in the pool, but I am too depressed to bother. Fine. Back to another round of self-flagellation for the repentant sinner.”

John raises his eyebrows. He meets Santino’s shrug, the roll of his eyes; _relax, John, you were never going to allow it_. Because of course it would be a truly, unbelievably stupid thing to do. The longer they stay here, the higher the chances of getting caught, of being missed by someone at the party, of poor overworked Cassian being sent to investigate Gianna’s absentee brother, of some lost assassin stumbling upon them in the search for a different target-

It would be a really stupid thing to do.

John lets the door handle go. He turns the key in the lock, sliding the bolt home. And then looks over at Santino.

“We don’t have much time,” he says mildly, shrugging off his suit jacket. “Better hurry.”

All the risk in the world is worth it for the look Santino gives him.

“_Mio Dio_,” he says. “You can't be serious.”

John crosses to the pool, hanging his jacket over one of the extended branches on the ornamental tree. He undoes his tie, draping it next to the jacket. Shoes and socks lined up tidily at the base of the tree with a couple of sheathed knives next to them. He gets started on the buttons of his shirt. “Yeah. Why not?”

“Because it’s insane,” Santino says, stripping down as he talks. He catches up fast, his clothes starting to form a tidy pile on the seat next to him. His expression is pure hunger. He watches the shirt slide from John’s shoulders like it’s something he’s never seen before, but craved for decades. Watches John disarm, unstrapping knives and holsters, lining his weapons up within easy reach. “And you are never so careless.”

“I like a challenge,” John says. He barely drops his hands to his belt before Santino crosses the room and pushes them off, working it open for him. They kiss gracelessly, teeth in lower lips, already breathing harder. Santino yanks his zipper down, briefly grazing his knuckles over the trail of dark hairs leading down John’s abdomen before grabbing his half-hard cock, squeezing. John gives him the groan he’s looking for.

“I know what you’re doing,” Santino says, dragging his hand over John’s cock, coaxing it to fill against his palm. “You think you can tame me, make me calm so I’ll behave for the rest of the evening.”

“Not really.” John doesn’t bother with teasing; they don’t have time. He gets Santino’s belt open in seconds, buttons undone, zipper down, and then he offers support for Santino to lean on as he strips everything off. “I just don’t share Gianna’s taste in music.”

“You’re indulging me.” Santino steps back, naked, already hard, watching John hang his suit pants over a tree branch. His eyes linger on John’s skin, the muscle and tattoos, the scarring, old and new. Absently, he bites his lip. There’s something slightly wild in his expression. A lack of control John really likes.

“Yeah,” he says. “People do that when they’re married. Keeps the romance alive.”

“It’s very much alive right now.” Santino steps into the pool. He holds out a hand for John to take, pulling him into the water. It’s shallow; barely comes up to their knees, steam curling around them as they touch each other, kissing slow despite the hurry.

“I missed this side of you,” Santino says against his lips. “No rules. No obstacles. Just the thrill of the game.”

“Don’t expect it all the time. I’m-”

“Retired, or so you keep telling me. But here we are, and now I wonder where exactly you plan to…take me next.” Santino punctuates his double meaning with a flick of his tongue between John’s lips.

“I’m not sure,” John admits. “Kind of thought the pool was deeper.”

“All style, no substance,” Santino says, amused. “Typical of Gianna. Perhaps I will make a complaint to her tonight, when she is looking particularly smug.”

“Please. Don’t.”

“Or what?”

“I figure those catacombs have to be useful for something.”

“Now that would be exciting,” Santino says. “The darkness, the risk of cave-in, the underground mausoleum-“

“Land mines.”

“All part of the thrill,” Santino retorts. “And I have never fucked on a family tomb before.”

“You’re depraved,” John says, as if he has any kind of moral high ground where he is. As if he wasn’t the one who locked the door in the first place. As if he’s doing anything other than slipping a hand between them to drag over Santino’s cock and his own, stroking them together and wondering absently if the catacombs would actually be doable. Most things are, if he wants to make them happen. It’s just a question of how much risk he can justify taking.

Santino watches his face with a knowing grin, his breath catching as John rubs a thumb over the tip of his cock. “So the catacombs _are_ an option,” he says. “You’re feeling generous. I wonder what else you would give me right now? What you would agree to.”

“Try me,” John says.

It’s one more terrible idea among many, but he likes the steam-spread flush on Santino’s skin, the playful lust, the real amusement. Something in him got lost after the will was read. Something in him was left behind in all the movement following his father’s death and his sister’s ascension. It catches up sometimes when they’re together; it’s present now. For the moment, Santino looks truly alive.

John would give a lot to keep him that way.

“_Try_ me,” he says again, daring Santino with his eyes and a firm squeeze around the base of his cock. His pulse pounds in his ears. The kind of adrenaline he rarely finds outside of putting his life on his line, but it courses through him now. He’s not…safe like this. Not exactly. It’s a mindset he spent five years burying.

He looks Santino in the eye and demands to be given an order.

Gently, Santino catches him by the wrist, removing John’s hand from his cock, holding him still. “Stop,” he says. There’s something calculating to his smile. A challenge. It suits him. It’s a very good look.

John gives him a nod. “Anything you say.” He feels the skin of his wrist tingling where Santino touches him. It would be no trouble at all to pull free. He doesn’t even consider it. He doesn’t have permission.

“As it should be,” Santino says, his tone low, intimate. He releases John’s wrist. “Touch yourself.”

Startled, John catches his breath on a response he doesn’t have. But he’s moving anyway; conscious thought not required. Circling his fingers around his cock, damp palm on overheated skin, gripping hard because he likes it that way and he hasn’t been told not to.

Santino watches with a focus that matches John’s own. “Good,” he breathes. “Like that. Perfect.” He rests a palm against John’s chest, pushing him backwards until his legs strike the side of the pool, and he finds himself seated on an underwater ledge. It’s still incredibly shallow; the water barely climbs halfway up his thighs. But the steam heats the air, and Santino settles down at his side.

“Did I say you could stop?” he says archly. John bites down an incredulous comment, a _why_, an expression of the embarrassment he can’t control while Santino watches him so avidly.

But the order was clear. He’s obeying it already; catching his breath as he closes a hand back around his cock, jerking himself off in slow, even strokes, lingering on the sensitive tip. He doesn’t know what’s wanted from him beyond that. Santino seems happy to lean on him, kissing the crook of his shoulder and watching. His hands wander. He passes a palm over John’s abdomen, the solid muscle under skin. Digs his nails briefly into the scar tissue in John’s side, where repeatedly torn stitches have resulted in a wound that healed untidily. John responds by quickening his pace. Longer strokes now, the ache in his balls starting to build.

Santino bites one of his earlobes and John groans.

“Having fun?” he asks. It doesn’t come out as casual as he was hoping for. The strain is present in his voice. He squeezes hard around the tip of his cock, watching clear slick bead between his fingers. Santino makes an appreciative sound. He passes a hand back over John’s abdomen, dropping low enough to rub fingertips through John’s pubic hair, and for a moment John thinks he’s going to be granted a reprieve. That he won’t be made to do all the work.

“Yeah,” Santino says. “I am. Almost as much as you, I think.” He wraps his hand around John’s, guiding him through shorter, rougher strokes, never quite touching John’s cock. “Don’t stop.”

“No,” John agrees, breathless, and Santino laughs.

“So obedient,” he says. “I have not forgotten your promise for the honeymoon; anything I want, you said, and I will hold you to it. There are things I want from you. So many things.”

John turns his head, leaning his forehead against Santino’s. With every stroke of his hand, he feels the tension build within him, a need he aches to satisfy, and won’t without permission. “I promised,” he says.

“You did,” Santino agrees. He drops a hand to John’s thigh, dipping his fingers into the water, drawing wet lines across John’s skin. “And I promised to make you suffer. How lucky for both of us that we are men of our words.” He smothers any response John might have made with a rough kiss, teeth catching, forcing John to match him or be overwhelmed.

John does, though he’s overheating, skin damp with sweat, with the steam that coats him and the heat of Santino’s mouth. They’re barely kissing; John pants for breath against Santino’s lips. He’s losing peripheral awareness to the rhythm of his hand. To Santino’s, one curled around the back of his neck, the other stroking between his thighs. Teasing his balls with a gentle squeeze; John makes a helpless, aching sound.

“Look at you,” Santino breathes. “What you could do to me. All the ways you could break me, but here you are. Letting me break you in turn. And how beautiful you are, broken. Thank you, John.”

There’s nothing John can say, but no response seems wanted. Santino’s mouth presses hard against his, coaxing John’s tongue between his lips so he can suck on it. His hand is maddening between John’s legs, playing with his balls, stroking fingers and thumb over the sensitive skin even as he sucks hard on John’s tongue and swallows his shallow moans. There’s nothing but him, and the pleasure that sears through every nerve ending in John’s body.

He stops, hand on his cock, gripping the base hard and shivering, fighting orgasm back through sheer will alone.

“I can’t,” he pants. “I need a minute-”

Santino hushes him. “It’s fine, John,” he says, kissing John’s cheek with lingering gentleness. “I have what I wanted. Your turn now. Here. Sit.” He nods at the marble edge of the pool, one level up, too high for the water to reach. John isn’t in a frame of mind to argue. He does as he’s told, hauling himself up to sit on the dry stone, the water lapping at his shins. With the cooler air to calm him, he tries to breathe. He’s on a knife edge still, his cock flushed and wet against his stomach, reddened with the friction of his hand.

He watches in dazed silence as Santino settles in front of him, John’s thighs pressing into his shoulders. He meets John’s eyes; a satisfied smile. And then he lowers his head to John’s cock.

There’s a mirror across the room. Unsurprising; there’s a mirror in every corner of this room, the angles and steam and candlelight twisting John’s grasp on the real. He sees himself. His wound-up form, hands clutching hard on the pool’s marble edge because he cannot, must not drag them through Santino’s styled hair, not if they want to go back out and act normal afterwards.

He sees the line of Santino’s back, the water that laps at his bare hips, the wet gleam of his skin. No tattoos on him; no ugly ink of ownership. Just the length of his spine, and the play of light on his shoulders as he moves, swallowing John down to the hilt.

There’s no teasing now; maybe he knows how pointless it would be, with John so far gone against his tongue. But there’s nothing perfunctory either. He swallows around John’s cock, dragging his tongue up the underside, his mouth as warm as the look in his eyes.

Wordless, John drops a hand to his shoulder. Squeezes a single warning. Santino gives him the barest of nods, and John doubles over, groaning as he comes.

It seems to go on forever; maybe it’s the room, distorting his sense of time. Even after the haze clears, Santino doesn’t pull away. He swallows; he always does. And still he teases the head of John’s cock with his tongue, his lips, sucking hard around John’s shudders until the sensitivity gets too much, and John pushes him off.

“Speechless?” he asks when John does nothing but breathe.

“…yeah.”

“The highest of praise.” Santino drags a hand up one of John’s thighs; tilts his head to kiss a knee. He’s flushed with heat, but there’s a languidness to his movements. He’s relaxed, as dazed as John is, though only one of them has come.

“Give me a minute,” John says, aching to touch him, to give back a bit of the suffering.

“No need.” Santino pulls himself up onto the side of the pool. Water runs in rivulets down his legs as he stretches. John strokes his thigh with a hand that only just passes for steady, and finds himself brushed off.

“No?”

“No,” Santino confirms. “It will pass. And I plan to spend the rest of the evening in happy contemplation of all the ways you will please me when we are finally permitted to retire. It may be the only thing that keeps me sane. That, and knowing what we did. What you did for me here.” He drapes a casual arm around John’s damp shoulders. Shaking his head, John leans into the half-hug. It could be worse, he supposes. The catacombs would have been a terrible idea. Here, the worst that can happen is that he can no longer enter the room without remembering the play of candlelight over Santino’s curved spine.

“I know we have to go back,” Santino says into the easy silence. “No need to remind me.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“No. I did not want to hear it from you, so I said it first. We have to go back. Some things are still required of me; by custom, and by my own honour. I will not hide forever.”

“Five more minutes,” John says. It’s a risk, but a calculated one. He needs the time to settle down; a switch needs to flip, to _hunt_ from _obey_. He’ll take the risk if it means he walks back out to the party without distractions, ready to act.

Santino drops the arm from his shoulders. He too is settling back into the skin he’ll wear to the party. Steadying his breathing, his cock softening untouched between his legs. He tilts his head back, stretching his neck. Steam makes the skin of his throat shine against the candlelight.

“I hid the marker,” he remarks.

John goes still. He doesn’t say anything; there’s no need, if Santino is telling him anyway. But the long moments it takes for him to get to the point stretch painfully long. John waits. He watches the candlelight on Santino’s throat, and doesn’t touch it.

“I’m not going to tell you where,” Santino says when he’s ready. “Only that it is safe, and hidden so well even Gianna could not find it. Maybe so well that I could not, if I left it there too long. An outcome that would suit you, I’m sure.”

“Yeah,” John says shortly.

Santino offers him a smile. “And me as well. Imagine what a life that would be, if I never had reason to call on it. Or if I had reason, but never the wish. I cannot imagine what kind of man I would have to be. How…satisfied with life. How happy.”

John tries to picture it, though imagination has never been his strong suit, any more than memory. He can’t quite see it. But he thinks he catches glimpses; they linger at the corner of his vision, distorted like the candles in the mirrors. Not quite real. Not quite false. Like the lie they told the High Table; at its center, an ember of truth, that years apart weren’t enough to extinguish.

He’s seen Santino happy. And he’s seen it in himself, even before his retirement.

“It’s not impossible,” he says. He’s aware of how closely Santino is watching him. He’s looking for something; John can’t work out what.

“Maybe,” he says slowly. “But for men like us? Almost.”

“We’ve had practice beating impossible tasks,” John says, startling a laugh out of Santino.

“We have,” he agrees. “Who knows? It may be enough, in the end. And either way…I have no regrets. I would not change anything about the two of us.”

“Not even coming to my house with a grenade launcher?”

“_Especially_ not that,” Santino says. “The look on your face when you saw. It was a beautiful thing.”

_Hell is empty_, John thinks, even as he grabs Santino’s chin, kissing him hard enough to walk the line between anticipatory pain and bloodshed. _And one of the devils is here. I’m wearing his ring. Every day it feels a little more comfortable._

The candles catch the edge of the D’Antonio crest, the ring bright against Santino’s skin as John drops a hand down to his throat, fingertips finding a pulse to stroke. It bothers him less than it did at the start. Someday it might even suit him.

For the moment, John closes his eyes and lends his legendary focus to kissing his husband.


	13. Epilogue

Early in the morning, Rome’s Continental is silent but for John’s muffled footsteps on the carpeted stairs. The dog wanders ahead, bounding two steps at a time before it pauses to check he’s following. He is. It’s nice to see someone else just as eager to leave.

And then it gives a low bark, trotting down to a seated figure on the bottom stair. Nuzzling the edge of a jacket, tail wagging as it receives the ear-ruffling it wants.

John stops a few stairs up.

“You have a very likeable dog,” the Investigator says. “At first I thought it was a trained guard, but evidence suggests otherwise.”

“It’s just a pet,” John says. “It doesn’t fight.”

“So many things about you are not what they seem.” The Investigator gives the dog a final pat before standing, dusting stray hairs from her clothing. “Where is your husband?”

John clicks his fingers, summoning the dog back to his side. He feels better for having it lean on his leg. “Getting dressed. I said I’d meet him outside. Check the bags are packed.” He takes the last few steps down to the marble floor of the foyer. It’s so quiet. No phantom strains of classical music, no well-dressed clientele. The night concierge stands behind the counter, tactfully unobtrusive. But most of the hotel guests spent their night at the coronation, and they won’t rise before noon.

For the moment, the Continental rests.

“Santino and I are leaving,” John says to the Investigator. He’s not blind to the fact that she stands between him and the exit. “Taking off for five days; you can stay here and hassle the guests, or head back to Naples with Ares. Your call. But you’re not coming with us. We’re owed a honeymoon.”

“So I imagine,” the Investigator says. “I was waiting for you, Mister Wick. I wanted to catch you before you went anywhere. There will be no further need of my presence, here or in Naples. The investigation comes to a close. Today I return to the High Table to deliver my verdict.”

John closes his eyes. He breathes deep; at his side, the dog nuzzles one of his hands until he rests it on a silky head. He was waiting for this. A part of him knew, or expected. A part of him made sure to get ready faster, to make an excuse and leave Santino in peace for a few more minutes, so that John could go down and take the verdict for him. Let him rest a little longer. John is more accustomed to pain.

“I’m listening,” he says, opening his eyes.

The Investigator nods. And then moves to one side, no longer a barrier between John and the Continental’s front doors.

“I find in your favour,” she says. “The marriage is genuine in every possible way, and therefore puts you outside the scope of High Table justice. You’re a free man, Mister Wick. You and your husband may do as you please.”

John doesn’t know what to say. “I…thanks,” he manages, stunned. “Seriously? Just like that?”

“Just like that,” the Investigator confirms. “And now I think I’ll go and sample the Continental breakfast. Please pass on my farewell to Mister D’Antonio; I doubt he’ll regret not seeing me again.”

“He won’t.”

“Understandable, given the circumstances,” the Investigator says. “Do enjoy your honeymoon. And best of luck for the happiness of your marriage; although, if what I have seen continues to hold true, I suspect that neither of you needs luck. You’ll manage just fine without.” She says it without approval or hostility. Without judgement. It’s just another statement, and her tone never once changes.

It may be a trick of the light, but as John steps past her and heads for the exit, he could swear he sees the hint of a smile. But he doesn’t look twice to check, and she’s gone by the time he reaches the doors.

Outside, the grey stone steps lead down to the forecourt, empty but for a single car. The trunk’s open, a bellboy occupied with carefully slotting one last bag inside. John stops where he is. Allows himself a smile.

Somehow, some_where_, Julius found him a Mustang.

Finally, he takes the stone steps down to the car, running a hand over the roof, the gleaming body. He pops one of the back doors open; there’s a wool blanket over the back seats, and the dog hops in with almost no encouragement. It snuffles around in the folds of the blanket, emerging victorious with a mouthful of off-white fabric, fluffy and rather badly tattered. Someone had enough of a sense of humour to put the dog’s favourite chew toy in the car for it. John is both grateful and amused.

He shuts the door, stretching in the morning air. The bellboy finishes packing, closing the trunk and accepting the coin John hands him. And then the forecourt is empty. Still half in shadow, the line of sunlight not yet spreading over old stone walls. The day will be warm, almost cloudless. Good weather for driving. John folds his arms, leaning back against the Mustang’s frame and closing his eyes.

A few minutes later, one of the Continental’s heavy steel doors swing open. John opens his eyes.

“Took you long enough,” he says. “Ready to go?”

Santino pauses on the steps. “Wow.” He’s utterly unsurprised.

John gives him a suspicious look. “Julius warned you.”

“We’re in my country now, John. You can’t expect the manager of _every_ Continental to take your side over all others.” Santino makes his way over to the car; he gives the roof a resigned pat. And then the dog, as it sticks its head out the back window and pants at him. “He warned me that you had borrowed a car. And that there would be a horse on the front.”

“That leaves a couple of options.”

“Not for you,” Santino says dryly. “I know who I married. Are you going to tell me where we’re going, or do I find out when we arrive?”

John holds the passenger door open. It earns him an amused smile, and a kiss so quick he might almost have imagined it. “I just borrowed the car. Pick a direction; I’ll drive.”

“Your planning is astonishing,” Santino says, settling into the passenger seat. “Alright. North.”

“Tuscany?”

“Siena, maybe. When I decide, I’ll let you know.”

“Whatever you want. You’re free to choose.”

“And you, John. Do you feel free?”

“I feel…hopeful. Seems like a good place to start.” John sinks into the driver’s seat, closing the door with a click like the slide of a magazine into a gun. Just as satisfying. Full of potential. His hands fit nicely on the steering wheel. It’s not quite the same as his own car was; different year, slightly different model. But he warms to it all the same.

“One day,” Santino muses, “I hope you will look at me the way you are looking at this stupid car right now.”

“The car is beautiful.”

“So am I.”

“Yeah,” John says, throwing him an amused look. “You are. By the way, the Investigator caught me on the way down; said she’s done with her questions. We convinced her. We won. She’s going back to the High Table today.”

Santino is very quiet for the time it takes John to start the car, the hum sinking into his skin, warm like a homecoming. John glances over and sees his head back against the seat, eyes closed. Rubbing the bridge of his nose. “When were you going to tell me?” Santino mutters.

“I just did.”

“_John_.”

“I know,” John says peacefully. “Tuscany, wasn’t it?” He pulls out of the driveway, cobbles crunching under tyres. In the back mirror, he sees the dog stick its head out one of the open windows, tongue lolling. And behind it, on the steps of the Continental, Ares is watching them go. He gives her a wave in the mirror. Laughs as she flips him off. A week without her boss in Naples might mellow her out, but he doubts it. That’s fine. That’s something to work on when they get back. Until then, it’s someone else’s problem.

“Thank you,” Santino says quietly. When John glances over, he’s staring out the window. “Truly. For this, and for everything you have done.”

“You’re welcome,” John says. “Thanks for marrying me.”

Santino makes a dismissive gesture. “It was no trouble.”

They look at each other. And then look away, hiding smiles as John leads the car out of Continental grounds, onto the roads of Rome.

It’s going to be a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done! If you made it this far, thank you for sticking with me! I hope you've had a good time, because I definitely have. Thank you for reading, leaving kudos, or even comments! Your time and interest is much appreciated.
> 
> And thank you as always to the person who made this happen, and stuck with me through bouts of complaining and panic sessions over plot holes. You're the real hero.
> 
> I'm not done with this ship (or this fandom! It's so much fun). I have a few things on the go, and we'll see what takes my interest next. A sequel is still up in the air, as is a prequel. Or something completely different! We'll see.
> 
> Have a good day, everyone!


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